































































. 


























































• 2 / 












f 

















T 


. . .. 

Safer English (EIubbub 


General Editor 


LINDSAY TODD DAMON, A.B. 

Professor of English in Brown University 


ADDISON — Sir Roger de Coverley Papers — Abbott 

ADDISON AND STEELE — Selections from The Taller and The Spec- 
tator — ABBOTT 

iENEID OF VIRGIL— Allinson 

AUSTEN — Pride and Prejudice 

BROWNING — Selected Poems — Reynolds 

BUILDERS OF DEMOCRACY — CEEENLAW 

BUNYAN — The Pilgrim's Progress — Latham 

BURKE — Speech on Conciliation with Collateral Readings — Ward. 

BURNS — Selected Poems and CARLYLE — Essay on Burns — Marsh 

CHAUCER — Selections — Greenlaw 

COLERIDGE — The Ancient Mariner 

LOWELL — Vision of Sir Launfal ) 1 vol.— MOODY 

COOPER — The Last of the Mohicans — Lewis 

COOPER — The Spy — Damon 

DANA — Two Years Before the Mast — Westcpit 

DEFOE — Robinson Crusoe — Hastings 

Democracy Today — Gauss 

DE QUINCEY — Joan of Arc and Selections — Moody 
DE QUINCEY — The Flight of a Tartar Tribe — French. 

DICKENS' — A Christmas Carol , etc . — Broadus 
DICKENS — A Tale of Two Cities — Baldwin 
DICKENS — David Copper field — Baldwin 
DRYDEN — Palamon and Arcile — Cook 
EMERSON — Essays and Addresses — Heydrick 

English Poems — From Pope, Gray, Goldsmith, Coleridge, Byron 
Macaulay, Arnold, and others — Scudder 

English Popular Ballads — Hart 

Essays — English and American — Alden 

Familiar Letters — Greenlaw 

FRANKLIN — Autobiography — Griffin 

French Short Stories — Schweikert 

GASKELL (Mrs.) — Cranford — Hancock 

GEORGE ELIOT — Silas Marner — Hancock 

GEORGE ELIOT — The Mill on the Floss — Ward 

GOLDSMITH — The Vicar of Wakefield — Morton 

HAWTHORNE — The House of the Seven Gables — Herrick 

HAWTHORNE — Twice-Told Tales — Herrick and Bruere 

HUGHES — Tom Brown's School Days — de Mille 

IRVING — Life of Goldsmith — Krapp 

IRVING — The Sketch Book — Krapp 

IRVING — Tales of a Traveller — and parts of The Sketch Book — Krapp 


ICake iEitgltfil) (Elassirs — rotttuuirft 

LAMB — Essays of Elia — Benedict 

LONGFELLOW — Narrative Poems — Powell 

LOWELL — Vision of Sir Launfal — See Coleridge 

MACAULAY — Essays on Addison and Johnson — Newcomer 

MACAULAY — Essays on Clive and Hastings — Newcomer. 

MACAULAY — Goldsmith, Frederic the Great, Madame D' Arblay — New- 
comer 

MACAULAY — Essays on Milton and Addison — Newcomer 
MILTON — L' Allegro, II Penseroso, Comvs, and Lycidas — Neilson 
MILTON — Paradise Lost, Books I and II — Farley 
Old Testament Narratives — Rhodes . 

One Hundred Narrative Poems — Teter 
PAI GRAVE — Golden Treasury — Newcomer 1 
PARKMAN — The Oregon Trail — Macdonald 
POE — Poems and Tales, Selected — Newcomer 

POPE — Homer's Iliad, Books I, VI, XXII, XXIV — Cressy and Moody 

READE — The Cloister and The Hearth — de Mille 

RUSKIN — Sesame and Lilies — Linn 

Russian Short Stories — Schweikert 

SCOTT — Ivanhoe — Simonds 

SCOTT — Quentin Duruard — Simonds 

SCOTT — Lady of the Lake — Moody 

SCOTT — Lay of the Last Minstrel — Moody and Willard 

SCOTT — Marmion — Moody and Willard 

SHAKSPERE — The Neilson Edition — Edited by W. A. Neilson, 

As You Like It Macbeth 

Hamlet , Midsummer-Night's Dream 

Henry V Romeo and Juliet 

Julius Caesar The Tempest 

Twelfth Night 

SHAKSPERE — Merchant of Venice — Lovett 
SOUTHEY — Life of Nelson — Westcott 

STEVENSON — Inland Voyage and Travels icilli a Donkey — Leonard 

STEVENSON — Kidnapped — Leonard 

STEVENSON — Treasure Island — Broadus 

TENNYSON — Selected Poems — Reynolds 

TENNYSON — The Princess — Copeland 

THOREAU — Walden — Bowman 

THACKERAY — Henry Esmond — Phelps 

THACKERAY — English Humorists — Ctjnliffe and* Watt 

Three American Poems — The Raven, Snow-Bound, Miles Standish — 
Greever 

Types of the Short Story — Heydrick 
Washington, Webster, Lincoln — Denney 


SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY 

CHICAGO: 623 S. Wabash Ave. NEW YORK: 8 East 34th Street 





gftnffoji 


S3GIU83H 


JLakz Cnslifil) Classics 

REVISED EDITION WITH HELPS TO STUDY 


KIDNAPPED 

BY 

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 

ii 


EDITED FOR SCHOOL USE 
BY 

ARTHUR WILLIS LEONARD, A.B. 

INSTRUCTOR IN ENGLISH, PHILLIPS ACADEMY, ANDOVER, MASS. 


SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY 
CHICAGO NEW YORK 



N 




Copyright 1914, 1920 
By Scott, Foresman and Company 



mar 30 1920 


.. . . 

ROBERT O. LAW COMPANY 

EDITION BOOK MANUFACTURERS 
CHICAGO. U S, A. 

©CI.A565380 



CONTENTS 


Introduction page 

I. Biographical Sketch 9 

II. Kidnapped 24 

III. General Historical Note 27 

IV. Chronology 31 

V. Bibliography 32 

Dedication _ . 37 

Chapters : 

I. I Set Off on My Journey to the House of Shaws 39 

II. I Come to My Journey’s End 45 

III. I Make Acquaintance of My Uncle 52 

IV. I Run a Great Danger in the House of Shaws. . . 61 

V. I Go to the Queen’s Ferry ‘70 

VI. What Befell at the Queen’s Ferry 78 

VII. I Go to Sea in the Brig “Covenant” of Dysart. . 84 

VIII. The Round-house 93 

IX. The Man with the Belt of Gold 99 

X. The Siege of the Round-house 110 

XI. The Captain Knuckles I/nder 118 

XII. I Hear of the “Red Fox” 124 

XIII. The Loss of the Brig 135 

XIV. The Islet 142 

XV. The Lad with the Silver Button: Through the 

Isle of Mull 153 


CONTENTS 


Chapters : page 

XVI. The Lad with the Silver Button: Across 

Morven 163 

XVII. The Death of the “Red Fox’’ 173 

XVIII. I Talk wi$i Alan fN*rtiE Wood of Lettermore 180 

XIX. The House of Fear 190 

XX. The Flight in the Heather: The Rocks 198 

XXI. The Flight in the Header: The Heugh of 

CORRYN AKIEGH 208 

XXII. The Flight in the Heather: The Muir. .... 217 

XXIII. Cluny’s Cage 226 

XXIV. The Flight in the Heather: The Quarrel. . . 236 

XXV. In Balquidder 248 

XXVI. We Pass the Forth 257 

XXVII. I Come to Mr. Rankeillor 270 

XXVIII. I Go in Quest of My Inheritance 279 

XXIX. I Come Into My Kingdom 288 

XXX. Good-bye 297 

Appendix 

Helps to Study 303 

Theme Subjects 307 

Selections for Class Reading 308 

Dramatization 309 

Chronological Table 311 


INTRODUCTION 


I 

BI0GHAFHICAL SKETCH 

Robert Louis Stevenson was born in Edinburgh on No- 
vember 13, 1850. He came of a family conspicuous for 
worthy accomplishment. His mother was the daughter of 
Lewis Balfour, minister of the parish of Colinton, and 
granddaughter of James Balfour, a professor in the Uni- 
versity of Edinburgh. His father, Thomas Stevenson, a 
member of a firm of lighthouse builders, continued with 
distinction a profession in which the family had already 
won notable success. The firm of Stevensons, which in- 
cluded Robert Louis’s two uncles, Alan and David, built 
a large number of shore-lights and beacons, chief among 
them the noble deep-sea light of Skerryvore. Thomas 
Stevenson was a man fond of books and a somewhat pro- 
lific w r riter on subjects relating to his own profession; a 
man, his son records with pride, “of reputation compara- 
tively small at home, yet filling the world.” His chief 
success was won in his inventions for the improvement of 
lighthouse illumination, which “entitled their author to 
the name of one of mankind’s benefactors.” 1 

That Louis should take up the hereditary profession of 
his family was at first assumed as a matter of course, but 
the leadings of his genius determined otherwise. Many 
of the influences of his boyhood were such as to awaken 
and stimulate an imaginative nature. The intervals of his 
1. Memories and Portraits: Thomas Stevenson. 

9 


10 


KIDNAPPED 


formal schooling (which. was rendered intermittent by his 
frail health) were spent in travel, — to Germany and Hol- 
land, to Italy and the south of France, to England, and, 
not least important, to the lighthouses on the coast of 
Fife, in congenial neighborhood to the sea. The impres- 
sion made by all these fresh and changing experiences 
upon the quick imagination of the boy may be inferred 
from a.passage written in later 3 ^ears : “When the Scotch 
child sees them first [the English windmills] he falls im- 
mediately in love; and from that time forward windmills 
keep turning in his dreams. And so, in their degree, with 
every feature of the life and landscape. The warm, hab- 
itable age of towns and hamlets, the green, settled, 
ancient look of the country ; the bush hedgerows, stiles, 
and privy pathways in the fields, the. sluggish, brimming 
rivers; chalk and smock-frocks; chimes of bells and the 
rapid, pertly sounding English speech — they are all new 
to the curiosity ; they are all set to English airs in the 
child’s story that he tells himself at night.” 

The effect of such scenes, and of those in the neighbor- 
hood of the Manse of Colinton, where he often visited 
his grandfather, the Reverend Mr. Balfour, was further 
increased by Louis’s love of reading. Even before he 
could read with ease — and that ability came somewhat 
tardily — he began to take keen delight in listening to 
romantic and adventurous stories. “For my part,” he 
sa} r s, speaking of his boyhood preference, “I liked a 
story to begin with an old wayside inn where, ‘toward the 
end of the year 17 — , several gentlemen were playing 
bowls.’ . . . Give me a highwayman, and I was 

full to the brim; a Jacobite would do, but a highway- 
man was my favorite dish.” 

Such a boy would naturally turn early to writing, 
though A History of Moses , dictated in -Louis’s sixth 
year, and Travels in Perth , written in his ninth, bear no 
sign of special precocity. The chief significance of these 


1NTH0JJVCT10N 


11 


early efforts is that their author was already busy on his 
“own private end, which was to learn to write.” 1 

When he was seventeen, Stevenson entered the Univer- 
sity of Edinburgh, with the intention of ultimately be- 
coming an engineer. At the various schools which he had 
previously attended — among them the Edinburgh Acad- 
emy — his industry had been languid and interrupted be- 
cause of his ill health and natural disinclination to 
perform set tasks. Now, his application to the work of 
the University classes was much impaired by “an extensive 
and highly rational system of truantry.” But if he 
had little or no interest in prescribed studies, his mind, 
“insatiably curious in the aspects of life,” found much 
to absorb it. He read widely in English poetry, fiction, 
and essays, and, if less widely, still considerably, in 
French literature. He took a great interest jn Scottish 
history, and was a genuine student of it. He had a share 
in founding the Edinburgh Literary Magazine. He be- 
came a member of the famous Speculative Society, — an 
undergraduate literary organization which had enrolled 
Walter Scott among its members,^ — and took an active 
part in its discussions. In consequence of much reading 
and speculation, he began to question certain matters of 
religious dogma. This attitude of doubt caused for a time 
a breach between him and his father, who held a strictly 
orthodox faith ; yet the son, though greatly grieved at a 
difference with one for whom he felt so much affection 
and esteem, w r as too sincere to conceal his own convictions. 

In the meantime, steady application to what for him 
was the main business of these university years was show- 
ing results. Continuing to practice the art of writing “as 
men learn to whittle, in a wager with himself,” he pro- 
duced much in both prose and verse — romances, poetical 
dramas, lyrics, epics — most of which he kept to himself 

1. For the full text of this passage, often quoted as good counsel 
for young writers, see Memories and Portraits: A College Magazine. 


12 


KIDNAPPED 


and finally destroyed. In his twenty-third year he made 
his first contribution to a regular periodical, an essay en- 
titled Roads. In the same year several friends whose opin- 
ion he valued urged him to adopt letters as a profession. 

Several years before this, his purpose to follow the 
calling of his father, a purpose never more than half- 
heartedly entertained, had been given over entirely. This 
change of plan was not due to any lack of aptitude which 
Stevenson had shown for engineering; in the same year 
in which he made his decision he received from the Edin- 
burgh Society of Arts a silver medal for a paper on the 
improvement of lighthouse apparatus. Nor was the en- 
gineer’s life likely to prove wholly uncongenial, since the 
opportunity for seafaring appealed to him strongly. But 
for the drudgery of the office he was entirely unfitted by 
reason of his health and his impatience of irksome confine- 
ment. Accordingly, in 1871, it was decided, with great 
reluctance on the father’s part, that Louis should study 
law. For his legal studies he manifested somewhat more 
zeal than for the more mechanical subjects that preceded 
them, though his work was interrupted by a severe illness, 
with symptoms which threatened consumption. In 1875, 
he passed his examinations with credit and was admitted 
to the bar of Scotland. For a time, chiefly to please his 
parents, he made some attempt to practise ; but, though 
he attended trials and appeared in legal wig and gown, 
the sum total of his briefs was four. The absence of 
clients was no sorrow to him; there was all the more 
leisure for his chosen craft. 

But even these none too serious attempts at practising 
law he felt to be an impediment to his true occupation, 
and he soon abandoned them altogether. Released from 
the restrictions of a formal profession, he began to lead 
a life of the sort he had long desired. For the next three 
years he spent much time between Edinburgh, London, 
and Fontainebleau, in frequent contact with literary men 


INTRODUCTION 


13 


and artists, whose kindred enthusiasms and ready discern- 
ment of his unusual promise stimulated and inspired him. 
His life during those days, free from convention and 
touched with vagabondage, yet filled with the growing 
interests of his literary profession,' passed very pleas- 
antly. Frequent excursions in the open air, among 
them those recounted in An Inland Voyage and Travels 
with a Donkey, insured him passable health. He was 
beginning to find a footing as an author, and though 
as yet recognition from the public was slight, several dis- 
criminating critics saw in him the signs of genius. In 
1 877 he published his first story, A Lodging for the 
Night , and, in the next year, his first book, An Inland 
Voyage. This was followed in 1879 by Travels with a 
Donkey. About this time he wrote also a considerable 
number of essays, notably several of the series afterwards 
printed in Virginibus Puerisque and Familiar Studies of 
Men and Books; the volume of fantastic tales entitled 
New Arabian Nights; and two stories, Will o’ the Mill 
and The Sire de Maletroit’s Door. 

In 1876, upon his return from his travels in the 
Cevennes, Stevenson met at Grez an American lady, Mrs. 
Osbourne, who, having separated from her husband, was 
living with her two children in France. He immediately 
fell in love. When, in the early part of 1879, Mrs. Os- 
bourne returned to America, he determined, quite un- 
wisely in the judgment of his family and friends, to 
follow her. 

That Stevenson should cross the Atlantic practically as 
a steerage passenger, and, after his arrival in New York, 
continue his journey in an emigrant train, was a proceed- 
ing thoroughly in accordance with his unconventional 
character. Moreover, he had little money, and was too 
independent to apply to his father for assistance. His 
contact with his fellow-passengers was, as with all men, 
sympathetic and observing, and he turned his experiences 


14 


KIDNAPPED 


to good account, both for enjoyment at the time and for 
literary material afterwards. The journey is pleasantly 
recorded in An Amateur Emigrant and Across the Plains. 

In California he fell upon evil days. Poverty, sick- 
ness, and exposure all but cost him his life. Even in 
these most adverse circumstances he kept his customary 
bravery of spirit, and, though he could write but little, 
still continued to write. Besides some unimportant work 
for California newspapers and two or three essays, he 
wrote The Pavilion on the Links and The Amateur Emi- 
grant, and drafted Prince Otto. Happily the period of 
straitened circumstances did not last long. In April 
Stevenson received from his father the assurance of an in- 
come sufficient for his needs. In May he and Mrs. 
Osbourne, who six months before had been divorced from 
her husband, were married. As soon as he had recovered, 
under his wife’s nursing, from the worst of his illness, 
they went to live for a time in a deserted mining camp 
above Calistoga — the scene of The Silverado Squatters. 

The following August Stevenson returned with his 
wife to Scotland. For the next seven years, in quest of 
health for both, they made frequent changes of resi- 
dence, sojourning at different places in Scotland, at 
Davos Platz in Switzerland, at the pleasant Chalet la 
Solitude at Hyeres on the Riviera, and finally at Bourne- 
mouth, England. Under these conditions, to which the 
energies of most men would have succumbed entirely, 
Stevenson continued to work, not only persistently but 
bravely and cheerfully, declaring that the medicine bottle 
on his chimney and the blood on his handkerchief were 
but accidents. It was during these years that popular 
recognition, so long withheld, came to him at last. Treas- 
ure Island , which had attracted but little notice when 
published as a serial in a boys’ paper, achieved, upon its 
appearance in book form in 1 883, a rapid and widespread 
popularity. Three years later, the author’s reputation 


INTRODUCTION 


15 


was still further increased and his supremacy among the 
younger English writers of the day established, by two 
stories,. Kidnapped and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Kid- 
napped, though generally less popular than Treasure 
Island, is a finer piece of work. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. 
Hyde, in which the conception of two opposing moral 
natures in man was presented in realistically concrete 
form, with vivid effects of mystery and terror, produced 
an extraordinarily wide response. To this period belong 
also two remarkable tales, Thrown Janet and The Merry 
Men, and two volumes of poetry, A Child's Garden of 
Verses and Underwoods. 

In 1887 Stevenson began a period of wanderings 
which was to lead him through many new scenes and 
strange adventures, and to end in romantic exile. Feel- 
ing, upon the death of his father, no longer so strictly 
bound to the neighborhood of his native country, he was 
free to follow the urgent advice of his physician that he 
should try the effect of a complete change of climate. 
Colorado seemed to offer the desired advantages, arid, 
moreover, Stevenson’s reputation in the United States 
made that country seem particularly attractive. Accord- 
ingly, in August, accompanied by his wife, his mother, 
and his stepson, Mr. Lloyd Osbourne, he set sail for New 
York. After leaving port, he discovered that he had 
taken passage in a cattle boat carrying a strange cargo 
of horses and apes; but the discovery was far from dis- 
pleasing to him, and, with characteristic enthusiasm, he 
enjoyed the experience “to the mast-head.” “We could 
really be a little at sea,” he wrote — “My heart literally 
sang; I truly care for nothing so much as that.” 

In New York he met with flattering evidences that his 
fame had preceded him, and he no doubt could have spent 
considerable time there very pleasantly. But the condi- 
tion of his health made it necessary for him to seek more 
favorable surroundings at once. Instead of going to 


16 


KIDNAPPED 


Colorado, however, as had been the original intention, the 
family decided to spend the winter in the Adirondacks. 
Here, in a house on Saranac Lake, they remained from 
October until April. The climate, though intensely cold, 
proved on the whole favorable to Stevenson’s health ; and, 
in a region that reminded him of his native Scotland, he 
w as able to w ork to good purpose. He began The Master 
of Ballantrae and wrote besides a series of essays. Some 
of these, Pulvis et Umbra , The Lantern Bearers , and A 
Christmas Sermon , reveal the best of his characteristic 
powers in essay writing. 

In April came fresh plans. We have seen how T Steven- 
son delighted in the sea. “The two uses of wealth,” he 
had once written, “are to afford a yacht and a stringed 
quartette.” The romance of the South Seas had long 
fascinated him, and a favorite amusement on winter 
nights at Saranac had been to plan a South Sea cruise. 
Wealth sufficient to charter a yacht was now forthcoming 
in the form of a legacy from his father; besides, he had 
contracted w T ith some American publishers for a series 
of letters on his cruises, to be written if his health 
should be restored. In June, 1888, he set sail with his 
family from San Francisco in the yacht Casco. Their 
(Course lay three thousand miles to the Marquesas, and 
thither for three weeks the Casco “ploughed her path of 
:snow across the empty deep, far from all track of com- 
merce, far from any hand of help.” Stevenson’s delight 
in the cruise was great, and the influence of the sea began 
to tell on his health for the better. 

In late July, the Casco came to anchor in the harbor 
of Nukahiva, in the Marquesas. As the land was revealed 
to Stevenson with the coming of the dawn, there fell upon 
him the spell of the South Seas. 

1 1 The first experience can never be repeated. The first love, the 
first sunrise, the first South Sea island, are moments apart, and 
touched a virginity of sense, . . . The land heaved up in 


INTRODUCTION 


17 


peaks and rising vales; it fell in cliffs and buttresses; its color 
ran through fifty modulations in a scale of pearl and rose and 
olive; and it was crowned above with opalescent clouds. . . . 

The schooner turned upon her heel; the anchor plunged. It was a 
small sound, a great event; my soul went down with these moor- 
ings whence no windlass may fetch it up; and I, and some part of 
my ship’s company, were from that hour the bondslaves of the 
isles of Vivien.”! 

Stevenson was not to see his own land again. After a 
three weeks’ stay at Nukahiva he began a series of cruises 
lasting more than two years. Now in the Casco , now in 
the trading vessels, the Equator and the Janet Nicoll, he 
visited almost every important group of islands in the 
Eastern and Central Pacific. Traveling among peoples 
scarcely emerged from barbarism, he found them in many 
ways attractive and lovable, and through an uncommon 
degree of sympathy with native feeling made many 
devoted friends among them. His tolerance toward 
the traditional customs and moral codes of the island- 
ers enabled him to break down the barriers of reserve 
which stood between them and most foreigners, so that 
he was admitted into intimate relations with some of 
the chiefs. Men of all classes and interests, even the de- 
spised half-caste whites, found him kindly and courteous. 

During these cruises and the various sojourns that in- 
terrupted them — at Tahiti, Hawaii, or Samoa — fhe work 
of writing went forward. At sea, he began The Wrecker, 
in collaboration with his stepson, and set about composing 
the long promised letters pn his travels. At Honolulu, 
he completed The Master of Ballantrae and two ballads 
based on native life and legend, The Feast of Famine and 
The Song of Rahero. In Samoa he wrote The Bottle 
Imp, the first of his prose tales of South Sea life. 

In the meantime, he had become convinced that no 
other climate was so favorable to his health as that of the 
islands and the neighboring seas. In 1890, he purchased, 


1. The South Seas. 


18 


KIDNAPPED 


near Apia, on the island of Upolu, Samoa, a tract of 
about four hundred acres, intending at first to make it a 
winter home and the base for further cruises. After 
making this purchase, he planned to visit England for 
the summer, but fell sick in Sydney, Australia. Finally, 
after a severe illness, he gave up the hope of seeing his 
own country again. Accordingly, in November, he re- 
turned to Apia and set about the arduous labors of 
making the estate habitable. 

Upon this estate, to which he gave the name of Vailima 
(Five Rivers), Stevenson lived until his death. It stood 
about three miles from the coast and six hundred feet 
above the sea. Behind it rose the slopes of Vaea Moun- 
tain, clothed with a dense growth of tropical forest. In 
these surroundings, at the head of a large household, 
which included, besides his immediate family, a number of 
native servants, or “boys,” the exile lived in the relation 
of a Highland chief to his clan. Those subject to his 
authority he ruled kindly, yet very firmly, and won from 
them a strong devotion. 

His influence spread quickly beyond his own house- 
hold ; he was consulted, says his stepson, on every con- 
ceivable subject. Soon his interest in the natives involved 
him in local politics. Two officials appointed by the 
powers in control of Samoan affairs — Germany, England, 
and the United States — were clearly guilty of unsympa- 
thetic and unjust dealings with the natives. The situa- 
tion was further complicated by the rivalry of two 
claimants to the throne, the chiefs Malietoa Laupepa and 
Mataafa. Laupepa was supported by the representa- 
tives of the powers, and Mataafa, notwithstanding the 
strength of his claims, was forced to withdraw. In this 
troubled state of affairs Stevenson intervened. Whether 
his intervention was judicious has been doubted, but his 
influence was wffiolly designed to further peace and to 
secure justice to the islanders. His protest against the 


• INTRODUCTION 


19 


misapplication of the trusts of office, published under the 
title A Footnote to History , brought about the recall of 
the two incompetent officials. ' But so strong was the 
resentment raised against him by this work that for a 
time he firmly believed he was in danger of being 
deported. 1 

In spite of the many interruptions to which he was 
subject, Stevenson’s life in Samoa was, on the whole, 
more favorable to literary work than any he had yet 
enjoyed. His health, though suffering occasional lapses, 
was much improved ; consumption had definitely ceased. 
For two years, at least, he was able to work as he had 
never worked before. He would often begin at six in 
the morning, before the rest of the family were astir, and 
continue until noon ; at times he would labor all day long. 
Even in a year of relatively slight production ( 1 891 ) he 
completed the letters on the South Seas and The Beach 
of Falesa , in his own opinion the first realistic South Sea 
story ever written. , The following year^ despite the de- 
mand made upon his time and energy by A Footnote to 
History , he wrote David Balfour, published Across the 
Plains, and undertook, besides a life of his family, the 
writing of six different romances. Of these only the Ebh 
Tide, begun in collaboration with Mr. Lloyd Osbourne, 
was completed by Stevenson’s own hand. 2 

But he had long been spending his strength too freely. 
There came a time.of depression, when some of the friends 
to whom he wrote (he acknowledged no change of feeling 
to his family) could detect a flagging of the spirit that 
had so long sustained him. He gave expression to discon- 
tent with his life and work, and even spoke of a pre- 
monition of death. This depression, however, was fol- 

1. For a full acdount of the Samoan troubles, see A Footnote to 
History. 

2. Of the other five, Sophia Scarlet, Heathercat, The Yovny Cheva- 
lier, and Weir of Hermiston remain in their unfinished form; St. Ires 
was completed by A. T. Quiller-Ooueh. in 1S97. 


20 


KIDNAPPED 


lowed by a renewal of the old time buoyancy and energy. 
As he wrote Weir of Hermiston , he had a sense of powers 
as yet unrealized, an assurance that his greatest achieve- 
ment w T as yet to come. But the death of which he had 
felt a premonition was near at hand. During the morn- 
ing of December 3, 1894, he had worked hard on Her- 
miston. In the evening, while gayly talking with his 
wife, he fell at her feet, unconscious, and in a few hours 
he was dead. 

His death brought forth new expressions of the love 
and loyalty of the Samoans. Twice during his life he had 
had unusual evidence of this : once when a feast was given 
to him and his family such as had never before been given 
to white people; again, and more touchingly, when a 
number of chiefs whose release he had secured from prison 
during the troubled political times, built a road for him 
with their own hands and called it “The Road- of the 
Loving Hearts.” Now, among those who sought to do 
him their last reverence, came one of these chiefs. “Be- 
hold !” he cried, “Tusitala 1 is dead. We were in prison, 
and he cared for us. We were sick, and he made us well. 
We were hungry, and he fed us. The day was no longer 
than his kindness. You are a great people, and full of 
love. Yet who among you is so great as Tusitala? What 
is your love to his love?” 

The next morning a party of forty of the natives cut 
a path through the forest to the summit of Mt. Vaea, and 
others dug the grave upon the narrow ledge that crowns 
the height. Here, “under the wide and starry sky” 2 he 
lies buried, his resting place marked by a simple tomb. 

Stevenson’s personality was many-sided, and a brief 
biographical sketch cannot convey an adequate impres- 

1. “The Teller of Tales” — the name the Samoans applied to Steven- 
son. 

2. Requiem in Underwoods. TJiis poem of Stevenson’s is inscribed 
on the monument. 


INTRODUCTION 


21 


sion of the “spirit intense and rare” that exercised so 
strong a fascination over his friends. Such a character 
eludes summary, but if a single trait can be selected as 
representative, it would seem to be the feeling and imag- 
ination of boyhood still fresh and living in the man. 
Stevenson had an unusual power to recall in after years 
the sentiments and associations, as well as the happenings, 
of his childhood. “And throughout his life,” writes Mr. 
Balfour, “for Stevenson to throw himself into any em- 
ployment which would kindle his imagination was to see 
him transfigured. . . . He drove stray horses to the 

pound [this was at Vailima,] and it became a border 
foray. He held an inquiry into the theft of a pig, and 
he bore himself as if he were the Lord President of the 
Inner House.” 

And so, too, certain natural objects which are charged 
with romantic suggestion to children never lost their 
power to move him. 

“It is thus that tracts of young fir, and low rocks that reach 
into deep soundings, particularly torture and delight me. Some- 
thing must have happened in such places, and perhaps ages back, 
to members of my race; and when I was a child I tried in vain to 
invent appropriate games for them, as I still try, just as vainly, to 
fit them with a proper story. Some places speak distinctly. Cer- 
tain dark gardens cry aloud for murder ; certain old houses demand 
to be haunted; certain coasts are set apart for shipwreck . ’ 

In this spirit of- imaginative child’s play, this ready 
response to the influences that quicken the fancies of 
youth, lies much of the secret of Stevenson’s charm as a 
writer for young people. 

In contrast to this essential spirit of boyishness, Steven- 
son showed genuine moral seriousness and religious feel- 
ing. “The world must return,” he once wrote to Sidney 
Colvin, “to the word duty. There are no rewards, and 

1. Memories and Portraits: A Gossip on Romance. 


22 


KIDNAPPED 


plenty of duties. And the sooner a lyian sees that, and 
acts upon it like a gentleman or a fine old barbarian, the 
better for himself.” And in Songs of Travel he writes: 

11 Wanted Volunteers 
To do their best for twoscore years! 

A ready soldier, here I stand 
Primed for Thy command, 

With burnished sword . f> 

The character of his religious faith, and its relation to 
his daily life, are reflected in the prayers composed at 
Vailima. 

FOR GRACE. 

tl Grant that we here before Thee may be set free from the 
fear of vicissitude and the fear of death, may finish what remains 
before us of our course without dishonor to ourselves or hurt to 
others, and when the day comes, may die in peace. Deliver us 
from fear and favor, from mean hopes and from, cheap pleasures. 
Have mercy on each in his deficiency; let him not be cast down; 
support the stumblers on the way, and give at last rest to the 
weary. ’ 1 

Stevenson’s position in the history of nineteenth cen- 
tury literature is a striking one. That he was “the most 
interesting and brilliant by far of those English writers 
whose life is comprised in the last half of the century ” 1 
is a judgment in which one may readily acquiesce, if 
only- on the ground of the general quality and scope of 
his work, and the stamp which it bears of an unusual and 
charming personality. His poetry, which is not, to be 
sure, of the best, and which often lacks his characteristic 
fitness and finish of phrase, has nevertheless found many 
approving readers ; and his essays, if sometimes lacking in 
the broadest sympathy and the soundest critical judg- 
ment, are delightfully graceful, fresh, and stimulating. 
But apart from all these qualities, Stevenson has another 
1. Saintsbury : A History of Nineteenth Century Literature. 


INTRODUCTION 


23 


^laim to consideration : he most fully represents, and most 
strongly influenced, the return to the spirit of romantic 
adventure in fiction. For a generation before his stories 
began to catch the attention of the public, romantic 
fiction had been almost entirely supplanted by the real- 
istic novel of ordinary life. The enthusiastic welcome 
given to Treasure Island and the stories published by 
Stevenson during the next decade, if it Revealed the 
natural reaction already going on in public taste, re- 
vealed also the sufficiency of the author’s powers to 
stimulate and satisfy the new demand. Writing in 
accordance with a definite literary creed , 1 in opposition 
to literary methods firmly established, he produced stories 
in strong contrast to the realism so long dominant. The 
life they deal with, though often real enough, is a life 
of unusual circumstance, filled with exciting action, mys- 
tery, and tragic menace. The characters are conceived 
in the spirit of the world they move in. Broadly de- 
lineated, without subtlety or minute analysis, they 
clearly reveal such traits as are called forth by the cir- 
cumstances that confront them. They are far from being 
mere puppets moved by the author through a tangle of 
events, or mere personifications of the qualities assigned 
to them ; they impress with a sense of living personality. 

Besides acting as a strong influence in restoring popu- 
larity and vitality to a neglected literary form, Stevenson 
is specially notable for another achievement. The great 
waiters of romantic fiction who preceded him, — Scott, for 
example, — had lacked perfection, or even superior finish 
of style. This superior finish, if not perfection, Steven- 
son had acquired. But style in his hands is something 
more than an added adornment which the work of his 
predecessors lacked. It is, on the whole, despite certain 
faults and affectations that must be admitted, a manner of 
expression so flexible and various, and so thoroughly at 

1. See A Gossip on Romance and A Humble Remonstrance. 


24 


KIDNAPPED 


his command, that he can make it take on life and color 
in accordance with the spirit of what he is w r riting, can 
key the whole tone of it to the whole tone of his subject. 
He thus imparts the final grace to the story-teller’s art. 

II 

KIDNAPPED 

We have already seen how susceptible Stevenson’s 
imagination was to the romantic suggestion of certain 
objects and certain places. This call upon his fancy,, 
he tells us in A Gossip on Romance , an essay written in 
1882, is made by the old Hawes Inn at Queen’s Ferry: 

il There it stands, apart from the town, beside the pier, in a 
climate of its own, half inland, half marine — in front, the ferry- 
bubbling with the tide and the guardship swinging to her anchor ; 
behind, the old garden with the trees. Americans seek it already 
for the sake of Lovel and Oldbuck, who dined there at the begin- 
ning of the Antiquary. i But you need not tell me — that is not all ; 
there is some story, unrecorded or not yet complete, which must 
express the meaning of that inn more fully. ... some day, 

I think, a boat shall put off from the Queen’s Ferry, fraught with 
a dear cargo. ’ ’ 

And in a footnote in a later edition he adds, 

I I Since the above was written, I have tried to launch the boat with 
my own hands in Kidnapped.” 

The story, written at Bournemouth, was first printed 
in 1886, in Young Folks , a boys’ magazine in which 
Treasure Island had been published a few years before. 
In the author’s own judgment, Kidnapped is the best of 
his stories; and it is, for a number of reasons, a master- 
piece of romantic writing. The plot, though simple, 
presents a sustained and logically connected sequence of 
events, sometimes thrilling, always interesting, — varied 
adventures by land and sea. Many of the deeply satis- 
1. Scott’s The Antiquary , Chapters I and II. 


INTRODUCTION 


25 


elements of romantic incident and situation appear 
in full measure : suspense, surprise, and mystery ; the lure 
and promise of seagoing ships ; combat victorious in spite 
of odds ; shipwreck, pursuit and hairbreadth escape, and 
final restoration , to one’s own. These, and more of the 
stuff that romance is made of, are all present, but present 
in new forms, so that the familiar material of stories of 
adventure receives a new life and character of its own. 
But more than this, Stevenson succeeds to an extraor- 
dinary degree in bringing home to the reader a vivid 
sense of the reality of scene, experience, and character. 

A simple illustration of this quality of vivid reality 
may be seen in David’s account of some of his experiences 
during his flight in the heather ; — 

/ 

“This was a dreadful time, rendered the more dreadful by the 
gloom of the weather and the country. I was never warm; my 
teeth chattered in my head; I was troubled with a very sore 
throat, such as I had on the isle ; I had a painful stitch in my side, 
which never left me ; and when I slept in my wet bed, with the rain 
beating above and the mud oozing below me, it was to live over 
again in fancy the worst part of my adventures — to see the tower 
of Shaws lit by lightning, Eansome carried below on the men *s 
backs, Shuan dying on the round-house floor, or Colin Campbell 
grasping at the bosom of his coat. From such broken slumbers, 
I would be aroused in the gloaming, to sit up in the same puddle 
where I had slept and sup cold drammach; the rain driving sharp 
in my face or running down my back in icy trickles; the mist 
enfolding us like as in a gloomy chamber — or perhaps, if the wind 
blew, falling suddenly apart and showing us the /gulf of some 
dark valley where the streams were crying aloud. & 

1 ‘ The sound of an infinite number of rivers ^came up from 
all around. In this steady rain, the springs of the mountain were 
broken up; every glen gushed water like a cistern; every stream 
was in high spate, and had filled and overflowed its channel. Dur- 
ing our night tramps, it was solemn to hear the voice of them 
below in the valleys, now booming like thunder, now with an 
angry cry. I could well understand the story of the Water Kelpie, 
that demon of the streams, who is fabled to keep wailing and 
roaring at the ford until the coming of the doomed traveler. 
Alan I saw believed it, or half believed it ; and when the cry of the 
river rose more than usually sharp, I was little surprised (though, 
of course, I would still be shocked) to see him cross himself in the 
manner of the Catholics. ” 


26 


KIDNAPPED 


This is not mere narrative and description. It is 
something better ; it gives us the sense of being on the 
spot, of seeing and hearing and feeling with our own 
senses. 

The sense of reality is no doubt heightened by the fre- 
quent appropriateness of events to the surroundings, a 
relation of which Stevenson had so keen an appreciation. 
“The right sort of thing,” he said, “should fall out in 
the right sort of place.” And in Kidnapped, things occur 
where the imagination feels satisfied they should occur. 
To be clearly aware of this, one has only to recall what 
happens in the ruined and mysterious House of Shaws, 
or on the broken turret stair revealed in a flash of sum- 
mer lightning, or out on the open, perilous moors. 

Stevenson’s power of making things real is shown not 
least effectively in his presentation of character. The 
persons in the story are not, as in some romantic novels, 
merely incidental to the events and of little interest in 
themselves. They are interesting for their own sakes, 
for they are individual and lifelike to a high degree. 
How completely, in the account of the fight in the round- 
house, Alan’s personality, with its mixture of courage 
and exultant pride in his skilled swordsmanship, colors 
and dominates the description of the combat. All the 
characters, whether important or not, “talk aptly and 
think naturally,” and give us the impression of living 
people moving in the scene. 

The chief character in one sense is Alan Breck. High- 
spirited, reckless, vain, competent and resourceful in 
danger, he makes a fascinating and impressive figure 
for such a story. But while he may seem to overshadow 
the quieter and less striking David, David is, in his own 
way, no less worthy of admiration. A boy of proper met- 
tle as yet unproved, who, under the stress of circum- 
stance, stiffens his courage and develops his latent powers 
of thought and action, need not take a place in our esti- 
mation very far below his more brilliant companion. 


INTRODUCTION 


27 


III 

GENERAL, HISTORICAL NOTE 

The historical element in Kidnapped is not to be found 
chiefly in the use of historic fact, but in the true repre- 
sentation of the spirit and atmosphere of the Highlands. 
That the story is, for the most part, moving against a 
Highland background, we are kept constantly aware, not 
only by picture after picture of wild and rugged scenery, 
but also by the description of Highland customs, and the 
display of the character of the clansmen — their narrow- 
ness, their savagery, their intense mutual jealousies, and, 
above all, their loyalty where they held loyalty to be due. 

The Highlands are a mountainous region occupying 
the northern and western parts of Scotland, and in- 
cluding many of the adjacent islands, particularly the 
inner and outer Hebrides. The natural boundary be- 
tween the Highlands and the Lowlands may be roughly 
indicated by a line drawn from Stonehaven on the east 
coast to Dunbarton on the west. The Highland country, 
with its valleys and gorges, its beautiful lakes, its rugged 
mountains and stretches of moorland, purple in season 
with broad patches of heather, is remarkable for its wild 
picturesqueness. 

The Highlanders are the descendants of the ancient 
Celtic inhabitants of. Britain who were driven northward 
by the Roman invaders in the first century a. d. The 
differences which for centuries existed between them and 
the Lowlanders — differences in speech, dress, and cus- 
toms — made them seem like a different nation. Their 
language, called Gaelic, is unlike either English or Low- 
land Scotch, which is essentially the same as English. 
The characteristic Highland dress was strikingly pictur- 
esque. A distinguishing part of this costume was the 
plaid, a wide rectangular garment of checked or cross- 


28 


KIDNAPPED 


barred cloth called tartan, sometimes woven of bright 
colors. In ancient times it was the custom to wind one 
end of this about the waist so that it fell in the form 
of a short skirt, and to throw the remainder about the 
bod}" like a cloak. Later, however, this roughly fash- 
ioned skirt was replaced by the kilt, or philabeg, and 
the plaid came to be used as a sort of cloak or shawl. 
The Highlanders wore on their feet rough shoes, or 
brogues, made of untanned hide with the hair turned 
outward, and caps called bonnets on their heads. In 
earlier times they fought with bows and arrows, axes, 
daggers, and particularly large two-handed, double- 
edged swords called claymores. Later, though of course 
they used firearms, their favorite weapon was the basket- 
hilted sword (commonly but erroneously known as the 
claymore), armed with which and protecting themselves 
with the target, a round wooden shield studded with 
nails, they would make a rushing attack upon their foes. 

The Highlanders were divided into tribes called clans. 
Each clan generally bore the name of some ancestor, 
from whom all its members w r ere thought to be de- 
scended ; such a name as Macgregor, for example, which 
means literally the sons of Gregor, or Macdonald, the 
sons or descendants of Donald. A clan was governed 
by a chief, who wa§ supposed to be the living representa- 
tive of the remote ancestor of its members. The chief 
exercised unlimited authority over his clansmen, both in 
peace and in war, and was followed with the strongest 
allegiance. The character of the country where the 
clans lived, each occupying its own valley or territory, 
cut off from its neighbors, tended to intensify individual 
clan life and to foster local patriotism. Often feuds 
existed between one clan and another, sometimes result- 
ing in outbreaks of petty warfare; and *at times the 
clansmen, owning allegiance to their chiefs before every- 
one else, w r ere actively hostile to the central government. 


INTRODUCTION 


29 


Against the Lowlanders, whom they regarded more or 
:less as hereditary enemies, they made frequent forays, 
^burning their houses and “lifting,” or carrying off, their 
Seattle. « 

In the various Jacobite uprisings — and four occurred 
in the Highlands between 1688 and 1745 — the Highland- 
ers played an important part. Of these, the “45,” which 
is so often alluded to in Kidnapped , w T as the last. In 
order to understand the meaning of this rebellion it will 
be necessary to recall some of the events in English and 
Scotch history during a period of about fifty years pre- 
ceding it. In 1688 James II of England — who belonged 
to the Scottish royal house of Stuart — lost the British 
throne as the result of a revolution. He fled to France, 
where he died in 1701. After the revolution, those who 
believed that James or one of his descendants should be 
restored to the throne, were called Jacobites. 1 After 
three unsuccessful attempts in favor of James II or 
of his son (also named James and commonly known 
as the Old Pretender), Charles Edward Stuart, the 
old king’s grandson, (known as the Young Pretender), 
resolved to raise the standard in his father’s cause. 
George II, of the German house of Hanover, was then 
king of Great Britain. In 1744, the French, who were 
at war with England and who hoped to weaken and 
distract their enemy by stirring up a Jacobite rebellion, 
had attempted to land 19,000 men on English shores. 
But the attempt w T as frustrated, and Charles, despairing 
of further help from France, determined to conduct an 
expedition to Scotland at his own expense, and to depend 
for support upon the Scottish and English Jacobites. 
He landed, July 25, 1745, at Borrodale, accompanied 
by only seven of the followers who had set out with him, 
for one of his two ships had been disabled by a British 
man-of-war. He was at first received w ith little enthusi- 
1. “Jacobus” is the Latin form of “James.” 


30 


KIDNAPPED 


asm. Some of the Highland chiefs, believing that a 
rising unassisted by a foreign army was sure to be futile, 
refused to join him; others did so reluctantly; and still 
others consented from motives of self-interest more than 
of loyalty. Moreover, the English and the Lowlanders 
looked upon his venture coldly. But soon he drew to him 
enough adherents among the Highlanders to make his 
rash plans seem possible of realization. In August he 
raised his father’s standard at Glenfinnan in the presence 
of the friendly clans. For a time he was successful. He 
occupied Edinburgh (though he was unable to capture 
the castle), defeated Sir John Cope at Preston Pans, 
and, elated by his success, entered England, with the 
intention of marching to London. But though he got 
as far south as Derby, he was forced to retreat to Scot- 
land. Later, at Falkirk, he gave the English so severe 
a check that his hopes again grew brighter. But on 
April 16, 1746, he was defeated by the Duke of Cum- 
berland at Culloden, and his army was put to flight. 
His cause was now lost, and he became a fugitive, com- 
pelled to conceal himself in the western Highlands for 
five weeks. Finalty, with the assistance of a girl, Flora 
Macdonald, he escaped in disguise to the island of Skye, 
and from there departed for France. 

After Culloden the Duke of Cumberland remained 
for two months in the Highlands, putting down every 
show of rebellion with fire and sword. In order to 
weaken the spirit of the clans, and so prevent further 
Jacobite outbreaks in Scotland, the British Parliament 
passed several stringent acts. One prohibited the wear- 
ing of the Highland dress ; another abolished the feudal 
power of the chiefs over their followers; another (more 
severe than a similar act passed in 1725) forbade the 
possession of arms among the clansmen. As a 'result 
of these and other repressive measures, and of the gen- 
N eral progress of history and civilization, a change was 


INTRODUCTION 


31 


gradually wrought in the spirit of the Highlanders. The 
Highland dress is still worn (for the prohibition was 
abolished in 1782), and pride in the clan names still 
exists ; but the old intense fighting loyalty to the clan 
has passed away. 

IV 

CHRONOLOGY 

1850 Stevenson born, November 13, at 8 Howard Place, 
Edinburgh. 

1858-1867 At school. 

1867 Enters the University of Edinburgh. 

1871 Abandons the study of engineering and begins to 
study law ; contributes to the Edinburgh Uni- 
versity Magazine. 

1873 Publishes a paper entitled Roads in the Portfolio , 
— his first contribution to a regular periodical ; 
spends the winter on the Riviera to restore his 
health. 

1875 Passes his final examination in law and is admitted 

to the bar of Scotland; makes the first of a 
number of visits to the neighborhood of Fon- 
tainebleau. 

1876 Stevenson and Sir Walter Simpson make the 

canoe trip in Belgium and France recorded in 
An Inland Voyage ; Stevenson begins the essays 
afterwards collected in Virginibus Puerisque 
and Familiar Studies of Men and Books. 

1877 Stevenson publishes his first story, A Lodging for 

the Night. 

1878 Stevenson takes the walking tour through the 

Cevennes recorded in Travels with a Donkey; 
publishes his first book, An Inland Voyage. 

1879 Publishes Travels with a Donkey; sails in June 

for America. 


32 


KIDNAPPED 


1880 Marries Fanny Van de Grift (Mrs. Osbourne) in 
San Francisco on May 19; returns in August 
' to Scotland. 

1880-1885 Stevenson and his wife live in various places 
in Scotland or on the Continent. 

1882 Treasure Island; New Arabian Nights. 

1885-1887 The Stevensons are living at Bournemouth. 
A Child 1 s Garden of Verses. 

1886 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; Kidnapped; The 

Merry Men. 

1887 Thomas Stevenson dies: the Stevensons go to 

America and spend the winter in the Adiron- 
dacks. Underwoods. 

1888 In June the Stevensons set sail in the Casco for 

the Marquesas. 

1888-1890 The South Sea cruises. 

1889 The Master of Ballantrae. 

1890^ In November, the Stevensons begin their perma- 
nent residence at Vailima. Ballads. 

1891-1893 The Samoan troubles. 

1892 A Footnote to History. 

1893 David Balfour ( Catriona ). 

1891 Stevenson dies, December 3. 

* V 

A BRIEF BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson. Twenty-six 
volumes. Charles Scribner’s Sons. 

The Biographical Edition. Twenty-seven volumes. 
By the same publishers. 

The Thistle Edition. Twenty-six volumes. Sold only 
by subscription. By the same publishers. 

Edition de Luxe. The Greenock Press. 

The Life of Robert Louis Stevenson. Graham Bal- 
four. Two volumes. Scribners. The standard biog- 
raphy. 


INTRODUCTION 


33 


The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson. Edited by 
Sidney Colvin. Two volumes. Scribners. 

Vailima Letters. Edited by Sidney Colvin. Two vol- 
umes. Scribners. 

. Robert Louis Stevenson. T. Cope Cornford. Dodd, 
Mead and Company. This, and the two following, are 
brief, one-volume lives. 

Robert Louis Stevenson. (Famous Scots Series.) Mar- 
garet M, Black. Scribners. 

Robert Louis Stevenson. A Life in Criticism. H. Bel- 
tyse Baildon. A. Wessels & Co: 

Stevenson , Robert Louis. Sidney Colvin. A brief 
sketch in The Dictionary of National Biography. 

Robert Louis Stevenson. Walter Raleigh. Edwin 
Arnold. An appreciation. 

Stevenson’s Attitude Toward Life. J. F. Genung. 
Thomas Y. Crowell. 

An excellent account of the Appin murder may be 
found in D. A. Mackay’s Trial of James Stewart , Glas- 
gow, 1 907. 

See also essays and comments on Stevenson by Henry 
James in Partial Portraits; by J. J. Chapman, in Emer- 
son and Other Essays; by J. M. Barrie, in An Edinburgh 
Eleven; by Edmund Gosse, in Questions at Issue and 
Critical Kit-Kats; and the various magazine articles 
accessible through the indexes to periodical literature. 





KIDNAPPED 


BEING 

MEMOIRS OF THE ADVENTURES OF 

DAVID BALFOUR 

IN THE YEAR 1751 

/ .. 

HOW HE WAS KIDNAPPED AND CAST AWAY 
HIS SUFFERINGS IN A DESERT ISLE 
HIS JOURNEY IN THE WILD HIGHLANDS 
HIS ACQUAINTANCE WITH ALAN BRECK STEWART AND 
OTHER NOTORIOUS HIGHLAND JACOBITES 
WITH ALL THAT HE SUFFERED AT THE HANDS OF HIS 
UNCLE EBENEZER BALFOUR OF SHAWS 
FALSELY SO-CALLED 

WRITTEN BY HIMSELF, AND NOW SET FORTH BY 

ROBERT LOUTS STEVENSON 

^ • 





» 








• 4 









































a 













. 





























































































1 



















* 






























DEDICATION 


My dear Charles Baxter, 

If you ever read this tale, you will likely ask your- 
self more questions than I should care to answer: as, 
for instance, how the Appin murder has come to fall 
in the year 1751, how the Torran rocks have crept 
so near to Earraid, or why the printed trial is silent 
• as to all that touches David Balfour. These are nuts 
beyond my ability to crack. But if you tried me on 
the point of Alan’s guilt or innocence, I think I 
could defend the reading of the text. To this day, 
you will find the tradition of Appim clear in Alan’s 
favor. If you inquire, you may even hear that the 
descendants of “the other man” who fired the shot are 
in the country to this day. But that other man’s name, 
inquire as you please, you shall not hear; for the 
Highlander values a secret for itself and for the con- 
genial exercise of keeping it. I might go on for 
long to justify one point and own another inde- 
fensible; it is more honest to confess at once how 
little I am touched by the desire of accuracy. This 
is no furniture for the scholar’s library, but a book 
for the winter evening schoolroom when the tasks are 
over and the hour for bed draws near; and honest 
Alan, who was a grim old fire-eater in his day, has 
in this new avatar no more desperate purpose than to 
steal some young gentleman’s attention from his Ovid, 
carry him awhile into the Highlands and the last cen- 
tury, and pack him to bed with some engaging images 
to mingle with his dreams. 

37 


DEDICATION 


As for 3 T ou, my dear Charles, I do not even ask 
you to like this tale. But perhaps when he is older, 
your son will ; he may then be pleased to find his 
father’s name on the flyleaf ; and in the meanwhile 
it pleases me to set it there, in memory of many days 
that were happy and some (now perhaps as pleasant 
to remember) that were sad. If it is strange for me 
to look back from a distance both in time and space 
on those bygone adventures of our youth, it must be 
stranger for you who tread the same streets — who may 
tomorrow open the door of the old Speculative, where 
we begin to rank with Scott and Robert Emmet and 
the beloved and inglorious Maclean — or may pass the 
corner of the close where that great society, the 
L. J. R., held its meetings and drank its beer, sitting 
in the seats of Burns and his companions. I think 
I see you, moving there by plain daylight, beholding 
with your natural eyes those places that have now 
become for your companion a part of the scenery of 
dreams. How, in the intervals of present business, 
the past must echo in your memory! Let it not echo 
often without some kind thoughts of your friend. 


Skerryvore, 

Bournemouth. 


R.L.S. 


KIDNAPPED 


CHAPTER I 

I SET OFF UPON MY JOURNEY TO THE HOUSE OF SHAWS 

I wile begin the story of my adventures with a 
certain morning early in the month of June, the year 
of grace 1751, when I took the key for the last time 
out of the door of my father’s house. The sun began 
to shine upon the summit of the hills as I went down 
the road; and by the time I had come as far as the 
manse, 1 the blackbirds were whistling in the garden 
lilacs, and the mist that hung around the valley in 
the time of the dawn was beginning to arise and die 
away. 

Mr. Campbell, the minister of Essendean, was wait- 
ing for me by the garden gate, good man! He asked 
me if I had breakfasted ; and hearing that I lacked 
for nothing, he took my hand in both of his, and 
clapped it kindly under his arm. 

“Well, Davie lad,” said he, “I will go with you as 
far as the ford, to set you on the way.” 

And we began to walk forward in silence. 

“Are ye sorry to leave Essendean?” said he, after 
a while. ( 

“Why, sir,” said I, “if I knew where I was going, 
or what was likely to become of me, I w r ould tell you 
candidly. Essendean is a good place indeed, and I 
have been very happy there; but then I have never 
1. Manse. Parsonage. 

39 


KIDNAPPED 


40 

Y\ 

been anywhere else. My father and mother, since 
they are both dead, I shall be no nearer to in Essen- 
dean than in the Kingdom of Hungary; and to speak 
truth, if I thought I had a chance to better myself 
where I was going, I would go with a good will.” 

“Ay?” said Mr. Campbell. “Very well, Davie. 
Then it behooves me to tell your fortune; or so far 
as I may. When your mother was gone, and your 
father (the worthy, Christian man) began to sicken 
for his end, he gave me in charge a certain letter,- 
which he said was your inheritance. ‘So soon,’ says 
he, ‘as I am gone, and the house is redd up 1 and 
the gear 2 disposed of’ (all which, Davie, hath been 
done) ‘give my boy this letter into his hand, and 
start him off to the house of Shaws, not far from 
Cramond. That is the place I came from,’ he said, 
‘and it’s where it befits that my boy should return. 
He is a steady lad,’ your father said, ‘and a canny 
goer ; 3 and I doubt not he will come safe, and be 
well liked where he goes.’ ” 

“The house of Shaws!” I cried. “What had my 
poor father to do w r ith the house of Shaws?” 

“Nay,” said Mr. Campbell, “who can tell that for 
a surety? But the name of that family, Davie boy, is 
the name you bear — Balfours of Shaws: an ancient, 
honest, reputable house, peradventure in these latter 
days decayed. Your father, too, was a man of learn- 
ing as befitted his position ; no man more plausibly con- 
ducted school ; nor had he the manner or the speech 
of a common dominie ; 4 but (as ye will yourself 
remember) I took aye a pleasure to have him to the 
manse to meet the gentry ; and those of my own house, 

1. Redd up. Set to rights. 

2. Gear. Goods. n 

3. Canny goer. A prudent, cautious person. “To gang canny” is 
“to move slowly.” 

4. Dominie. Schoolmaster. 


MY JOUBNEY TO THE HOUSE OF SHAWS 41 

sV 

Campbell of Kilrennet, Campbell of Dunswire, Camp- 
bell of Minch, and others, all well-kenned 1 gentlemen, 
had pleasure in his society. Lastly, to put all the 
elements of this affair before you, here is the testa- 
mentary letter itself, superscribed by the own hand 
of our departed brother.” 

He gave me the letter, which was addressed in these 
words: “To the hands of Ebenezer Balfour, Esquire, 
of Shaws, in his house of Shaws, these will be delivered 
by my son, David Balfour.” My heart was beating 
hard at this great prospect how suddenly opening 
before a lad of sixteen years of age, the son of a poor 
country dominie in the Forest of Ettrick . 2 

“Mr. Campbell,” I stammered, “and if you were in 
my shoes, would you go?” 

“Of a surety,” said the minister, “that would I, and 
without pause. A pretty lad like you should get to 
Cramond (which is near in by Edinburgh) in two days 
of walk. If the worst came to the worst, and your 
high relations (as I cannot but suppose them to be 
somewhat of your blood) should put you to the door, 
ye can but walk the two days back again and risp 3 
at the manse door. But I would rather hope that ye 
shall be well received, as your poor father forecast 
for you, and for anything that I ken , 4 come to be a 
great man in time. And here, Davie laddie,” he 
resumed, “it lies near upon my conscience to improve 
this parting, and set you on the right guard against 
the dangers of the world.” 

Here he cast about for a comfortable seat, lighted 
on a big boulder under a birch by the trackside, sate 
down upon it with a very long, serious upper lip, and 

1. 'Well-kenned. Well known. 

2. Forest of Ettrick. In Selkirkshire, to all of which the name 
was once applied. 

3. Risp. Knock. 

4. Ken. Know. 


KIDNAPPED 


42 

^ ‘H 

the sun now shining in upon us between two peaks, 
put his pocket-handkerchief over his cocked hat to 
shelter him. There, then, with uplifted forefinger, he g 
first put me on my guard against a considerable 
number of heresies, to which I had no temptation, and 
urged upon me to be instant in my prayers and 
reading of the Bible. That done, he drew a picture f 
of the great house that I was bound to, and how I 
should conduct myself with its inhabitants. 

“Be soople * 1 Davie, in things immaterial,” said he. 
“Bear ye this in mind, that, though gentle born, ye « 
have had a country rearing. Dinnae shame us, Davie, ' 
dinnae shame . us ! In yon great, muckle 2 house, w ith 
all these domestics, upper and under, show yourself 
as nice, as circumspect, as quick at the conception, and 
as slow of speech as any. As for the laird 3 — remember 
he’s the laird; I say no more: honor to whom honor. 
It’s a pleasure to obey a laird; or should be, to the 
young.” 

“Well, sir,” said I, “it may be; and I’ll promise ; 
you I’ll try to make it so.” 

“Why, very w^ell said,” replied Mr. Campbell, i 
heartily. “And now to come to the material, or (t© 
make a quibble) to the immaterial. I have here a 
little packet which contains four things.” He tugged 
it, as he spoke, and wdth some difficulty, from the 
skirt pocket of his coat. “Of these four things, the 
first is your legal due: the little pickle 4 money for 
your father’s books and plenishing, which I have 
bought (as I have explained from the first) in the 
design of re-selling at a profit to the incoming dominie. 
The other three are gif ties that Mrs. Campbell and 

1. Soople. Liberal. 

2. Muckle. Large. 

3. Laird. A land holder, below the rank of knight. 

4. Pickle. A small quantity. 


MY JOUBNEY TO THE HOUSE OF SHAWS 43 

myself would be blithe of your acceptance . 1 The 
first, which is round, will likely please ye best at the 
first off-go ; but, O Davie laddie, it’s but a drop of 
! water in the sea ; it’ll help you but a step, and vanish 
like the morning. The second, which is flat and square 
and written upon, will stand by you through life, like 
| a good staff for the road, and a good pillow to your 
head in sickness. And as for the last, which is cubical, 
i that’ll see you, it’s my prayerful wish, into a better 
I land.” 

With that he got upon his feet, took off his hat, 
and prayed a little while aloud, and in affecting terms, 
for a young man setting out into the world; then 
suddenly took me in his arms and embraced me very 
hard ; then held me at arm’s length, looking at me 
with his face all working with sorrow ; and then whipped 
about, and crying good-bye to me, set off backward 
by the way that we had come at a sort of jogging 
run. It might have been laughable to another; but 
I was in no mind to laugh. I watched him as long as 
he was in sight ; and he never stopped hurrying, nor 
once looked back. Then it came in upon my mind 
that this was all his sorrow at my departure; and my 
conscience smote me hard and fast, because I, for my 
part, was overjoyed to get away out of that (piiet 
country-side, and go to a great, busy house, among 
rich and respected gentlefolk of my own name and 
blood. 

“Davie, Davie,” I thought, “was ever seen such 
black ingratitude? Can you forget old favors and 
old friends at the mere whistle of a name? Fy, fy, 
think shame !” 

And I sat down upon the boulder the good man 
had just left, and opened the parcel to see the nature 
of my gifts. That which he had called cubical, I had 
1. Blithe of your acceptance. Glad to have you accept. 


KIDNAPPED 


44 

£ 

never had ntuch doubt of ; sure enough it was a little 
Bible, to carry in a plaid-neuk . 1 That which he had 
called round, I found to be a shilling piece ; and the 
third, which was to help me so wonderfully both in 
health and sickness all the days of my life, was a little t 
piece of coarse yellow paper, written upon thus in red * 
ink : 

“To Make Lilly of the Valley Water. — Take the flowers of 
lilly of the valley and distil them in sack , 2 and drink a spooneful q 
or two as there is occasion It restores speech to those that have 
the dumb palsey. It is good against the Gout; it comforts the 
heart and strengthens the memory; and the flowers, put into a 
Glasse, close stopt, and set into ane hill of ants for a month, then 
take it out, and you will find a liquor which comes from the flowers, j 
which keep in a vial; it is good, ill or w 7 ell, and whether man or 
woman. * ’ 

And then, in the minister’s own hand, was added : 

“Likewise for sprains, rub it in; and for the cholic, a great 
spooneful in the hour. ” 

To be sure, I laughed over this ; but it was rather 
tremulous laughter ; and I was glad to get my bundle j 
on my staff’s end and set out over the ford and up 
the hill upon the farther side; till, just as I came on 
the green drove-road running wide through the heather, 

I took my last look of Kirk Essendean, the trees about 
the manse, and the big rowans 3 in the kirkyard where my 
father and my mother lay. 

1. PI aid -n cuk. A corner or fold of the plaid. The plaid is a loose 
outer garment of tartan, or checkered cloth. See General Historical 
Note, Introduction, page 27. 

2. Sack. A dry Spanish wine of light color. 

3. Roivans. Mountain-ash trees. 


CHAPTER II 


I COME TO MY JOURNEY’S END 

On the forenoon of the second day, coming to the 
top of n, hill, I saw all the country fall away before me 
down to the sea ; and in the midst of this descent, on 
a long ridge, the city of Edinburgh smoking like a 
kiln. There was a flag upon the castle , 1 and ships 
moving or lying anchored in the firth ; both of which, 
for as far away as they were, I could distinguish 
clearly ; and both brought my country heart into my 
mouth. 

Presently after I came by a house where a shepherd 
lived, and got a rough direction for the neighborhood 
of Cramond, and so, from one to another, worked my 
way to the westward of the capital by Colinton, till 
I came out upon the Glasgow road. And there to my 
great pleasure and wonder, I beheld a regiment march- 
ing to the fifes, every foot in time; an old red-faced 
general on a gray horse at the one end, and at the 
other the company of Grenadiers , 2 with their Pope’s- 
hats . 3 The pride of life seemed to mount into my 
brain at the sight of the redcoats and the hearing of 
that merry music. 

A little further on, and I was told I was in Cramond 
parish, and began to substitute in my inquiries the 

1. The castle. Edinburgh Castle, an ancient seat of the Scottish 
kings, occupies a lofty eminence in the city of Edinburgh. 

2. Grenadiers. Originally soldiers .who threw hand-grenades* in 
battle ; later, soldiers picked for their great stature. 

3. Pope’s-hats. The tall pointed hats worn by the British grena- 
diers somewhat resembled the miter, the characteristic headdress of 
the Pope of Rome. 


45 


KIDNAPPED 


name of the house of Shaws. It was a word that j 
seemed to surprise those of whom I sought my way. j 
At first I thought the plainness of my appearance, m 
my country habit, and that all dusty from the load, ; 
consorted ill with the greatness of the place to which 
I was bound. But after two, or maybe three, had 
given me the same look and the same answer, I began 
to take it in my head there was something strange 
about the Shaws itself. 

The better to set this fear at rest, I changed the 
form of my inquiries; and spying an honest fellow 
coming along a lane on the shaft of his cart, I asked 
him if he had ever heard tell of a house they called 
the house of Shaws. 

He stopped his cart and looked at me, Jike the others. 

“Ay,” said he. “What for?” 

“It’s a great house?” I asked. 

“Doubtless,” says he. “The house is a big, muckle 
house.” 

“Ay,” said I, “but the folk that are in it?” 

“Folk?” cried he. “Are ye daft? There’s nae folk 
there — to call folk.” 

“What?” says I ; “not Mr. Ebenezer?” 

“0, ay,” says the man ; “there’s the laird, to be 
sure, if it’s him you’re wanting What’ll like be your 
business, mannie?” 

“I was led to think that I would get a situation,” 

I said, looking as modest as I could. 

“What?” cries the carter, in so sharp a note that 
his very horse started, and then, “Well, mannie,” he 
added, “it’s nane of my affairs; but ye seem a decent- 
spoken lad; and if ye’ll take a word from me, ye’ll 
keep clear of the Shaws.” 

The next person I came across was a dapper little 
man in a beautiful white wig, whom I saw to ' be a 
barber on his rounds; and knowing well that barbers 


I COME TO MY JOURNEY'S END 47 

At 

were great gossips, I asked him plainly what sort of 
a man was Mr. Balfour of the Shaws. 

“Hoot, hoot, hoot,” said the barber, “nae kind of 
a man, nae kind of a man at all;” and began to ask 
me very shrewdly what my business was ; but I was 
more than a match foi him at that, and he went on 
to his next customer no wiser than he came. 

I cannot well describe the blow this dealt to my 
illusions. The more indistinct the accusations were, 
the less I liked them, for they left the wider field to 
fancy. What kind of a great house was this, that all 
the parish should start and stare to be asked the. way 
to it? or what sort of a gentleman that his ill-fame 
should be thus current on the wayside? If an hour’s 
walking would have brought me back to Essendean, 
I had left my adventure then and there, and returned 
to Mr. Campbell’s. But when I had come so far a 
way already, mere shame would not suffer me to desist 
till I had put the matter to the touch of proof ; I was 
bound, out of mere self-respect, to carry it through; 
and little as I liked the sound of what I heard, and 
slow as I began to travel, I still kept asking my way 
and still kept, advancing. 

It was drawing on to sundown when I met a stout, 
dark, sour-looking woman coming trudging down a hill ; 
and she, when I had put my usual question, turned sharp 
about, accompanied me back to the summit she had 
just left, and pointed to a great bulk of building 
standing very bare upon a green in the bottom of the 
next valley. The country was pleasant round about, 
running in low hills, pleasantly watered and wooded, 
and the crops, to my eyes, wonderfully good; but the 
house ‘itself appeared to be a kind of ruin ; no road 
led up to it; no smoke arose from any of the chimneys; 
nor was there any semblance of a garden. My heart 
sank. “That!” I cried. 


KIDNAPPED 


48 

. au 

The woman’s face lit up with a malignant anger. ■ 
“That is the house of Shaws !” she cried. “Blood built 
it; blood stopped the building of it; blood shall bring ■ 
it down. See here !” she cried again— “I spit upon the ; 
ground, and crack my thumb at it! Black be its fall! i 
If ye see the laird, tell him what ye hear; tell him j 
this makes the twelve hunner and nineteen time that : 
Jennet Clouston has called down the curse on him and 
his house, byre 1 and stable, man, guest, and master, 
wife, miss, or bairn — black, black be their fall!” j 

And the woman, whose voice had risen to a kind of 
eldritch 2 sing-song, turned with a skip, and w T as gone. 1 
I stood where she left me, with my hair on end. In 
those days folk still believed in witches and trembled 
at a curse; and this one, falling so pat, like a wayside 
omen, to arrest me ere I carried out my purpose, took 
the pith out of my legs. 

I sat me down and stared at the house of Shaws. 
The more I looked the pleasanter that country-side 
appeared; being all set with hawthorn bushes full of 
flowers; the fields dotted with sheep; a fine flight of 
rooks in the sky; and every sign of a kind soil and 
climate; and yet the barrack in the midst of it went 
sore against my fancy. 

Country folk went by from the fields as I sat there 
on the side of the ditch, but I lacked the spirit to 
give them a good-e’en. At last the sun went down, 
and then, right up against the yellow sky, I saw a 
scroll of smoke go mounting not much thicker, as it 
seemed to me, than the smoke of a candle ; but still 
there it w r as, and meant a fire, and warmth, and cookery, 
and some living inhabitant that must have lit it; and 
this comforted my heart wonderfully — more, I feel 
sure, than a whole flask of the lily of the valley w r ater 
that Mrs. Campbell set so great a store by. 

1. Byre. Cow-stable. 2. Eldritch. Uncanny ; ghastly. 


I GOME TO MY JOURNEY’S END 49 

2/V? 

So I set forward by a little faint track in the grass 
that led in my direction/ It was very faint indeed to 
be the only way to a place of habitation ; yet I saw no 
other. . Presently it brought me to stone uprights, 
with an unroofed lodge beside them, and coats of arms 
upon the top. A main entrance, it was plainly meant 
to be, but never finished ; instead of gates of wrought 
iron, a pair of hurdles 1 were tied across with a straw 
rope ; and as there were no park walls, nor any sign 
of avenue, the track that I was following passed on 
the right hand of the pillars and went wandering on 
toward the house. 

The nearer I got to that the drearier it appeared. 
It seemed like the one wing of a house that had never 
been finished. What should have been the inner end 
stood open on the upper floors, and showed against 
the sky with steps and stairs of uncompleted masonry. 
Many of the windows were unglazed, and bats flew in 
and out like doves out of a dove-cote. 

The night had begun to fall as I got close; and 
in three of the lower windows, which were very high 
up, and narrow, and well barred, the changing light 
of a little fire began to glimmer. 

Was this the palace I had been coming to? Was 
it within these walls that I was to seek new friends 
and begin great fortunes? Why, in my father’s houst 
on Essen- Waterside, the fire and the bright lights 
would show a mile away, and the* door open to s 
beggar’s knock! 

I came forward cautiously, and giving ear as I 
came, heard some one rattling with dishes, and a little 
dry, eager cough that came in fits ; but there was no 
sound of speech, and not a dog barked. 

The door, as well as I could see it in the dim light, 
was a great piece of wood all studded with nails ; and 
1. Hurdles. Removable gates, made of timber or twigs, etc. 


KIDNAPPED 


50 

n 

I lifted my hand with a faint heart under my jacket* 
and knocked once. Then I stood and waited. -The 
house had fallen into a dead silence; a whole minute 
passed away, and nothing stirred but the bats overhead. 
I knocked again, and hearkened again. By this time 
my ears had grown so accustomed to the quiet, that 
I could hear the ticking of the clock inside as it 
slowly counted out the seconds ; but whoever was in 
that house kept deadly still, and must have held his 
breath. 

I was in two minds whether to run away ; but anger 
got the upper hand-, and I began instead to rain kicks 
and buffets on the door, and to shout out aloud for 
Mr. Balfour. I was in full career, when I heard the 
cough right overhead, and jumping_back and looking 
up, beheld a man’s head in a tall nightcap, and the 
bell mouth of a blunderbuss, at one of the first story 
windows. 

“It’s loaded,” said a voice. 

“I have come here with a letter,” I said, “to Mr. 
Ebenezer Balfour of Shaws. Is he here?” 

“From whom is it?” asked the man with the blun- 
derbuss. 

“That is neither here nor there,” said I, for I was 
growing very wroth. 

“Well,” was the reply, “ye can put it down upon 
the doorstep, and be off with ye.” 

“I will do no such thing,” I cried. “I will deliver 
it into Mr. Balfour’s hands, as it was meant I should. 
It is a letter of introduction.” 

“A what ?” cried the voice, sharply^. 

I repeated what I had said. 

“Who are ye, yourself?” was the next question, after 
a considerable pause. 

“I am not ashamed of my name,” said I. “They 
call me David Balfour.” 


I COME TO MJ JOURNEY'S END 51 

/ 6 

At that, I made sure the man started, for I heard the 
blunderbuss rattle on the window-sill; and it was after 
quite a long pause, and with a curious change of voice, 
that the next question followed: 

“Is your father dead?” 

I was so much surprised at this, that I could find 
no voice to answer, but stood staring. 

“Ay,” the man resumed, “he’ll be dead, no doubt; 
and that’ll be what brings ye chapping 1 to my door.” 
Another pause, and then, defiantly, “Well, man,” he 
said, “I’ll let ye in;” and he disappeared from the 
window. 

1. Chapping. Tapping. 


CHAPTER HI 


I MAKE ACQUAINTANCE OF MY UNCLE 

Presently there came a great rattling of chains 
and bolts, and the door was cautiously opened, and 
shut to again behind me as soon as I had passed. 

“Go into the kitchen and touch naething,” said the 
voice; and while the person of the house set himself 
to replacing the defences of the door, I groped my 
way forward and entered the kitchen. 

The fire had burned up fairly bright, and showed 
me the barest room I think I ever put my eyes on. 
Half-a-dozen dishes stood upon the shelves; the table 
was laid for supper with a bowl of porridge, a horn 
spoon, and a cup of small beer. Besides what I have 
named, there was not another thing in that great, 
stone-vaulted, empty chamber, but lock-fast chests ar- 
ranged along the wall and a corner cupboard with a 
padlock. 

As soon as the last chain was up the man rejoined 
me. He was a mean, stooping, narrow-shouldered, clay- 
faced creature; and his age might have been anything 
between fifty and seventy. His nightcap was of flannel, 
and so was the nightgown that he wore, instead of coat 
and waistcoat, over his ragged shirt. He was long 
unshaved ; but what most distressed and even daunted 
me, he would neither take his eyes away from me nor 
look me fairly in the face. What he was, whether by 
trade or birth, was more than I could fathom; but he 
seemed most like an old, unprofitable serving-man, who 
should have been left in charge of that big house upon 
board wages. 


52 
/ 6 


1 MAKE ACQUAINTANCE OF MY UNCLE 53 

/ 7 

“Are ye sharp-set?” he asked, glancing at about the 
level of my knee. “Ye can eat that drop parritch.” 

I said I feared it was his 'own supper. 

“0,” said he, “I can do fine wanting it. Fll take the 
ale though, for it slockens 1 my cough.” He drank the 
cup about half out, still keeping an eye upon me as 
he drank; and then suddenly held out his hand. “Let’s 
see the letter,” said he. 

I told him the letter was for Mr. Balfour; not for 
him. 

“And who do ye think I am?” says he. “Give me 
Alexander’s letter!” 

“You know my father’s name?” 

“It would be strange if I didnae,” he returned, “for 
he was my born brother; and little as ye seem to like 
either me or my house, or my good parritch, I’m your 
born uncle, Davie my man, and you my born nephew. 
So give us the letter, and sit down and fill your kyte.” 2 

If I had been some years younger, what with shame, 
weariness, and disappointment, I believe I had burst 
into tears. As it was, I could find no words, neither 
black nor white, but handed him the letter, and sat 
down to the porridge with as little appetite for meat 
as ever a young man had. 

Meanwhile, my uncle, stooping over the fire, turned 
the letter over and over in his hands. 

“Do ye ken what’s in it?” he asked suddenly. 

“You see for yourself, sir,” said I, “that the seal has 
not been broken.” 

“Ay,” said he, “but what brought you here?” 

“To give the letter,” said I. 

“No,” says he, cunningly, “but ye’ll have had some 
hopes, nae doubt?” 

“I confess, sir,” said I, “when I was told that I had 
kinsfolk, well-to-do, I did indeed indulge the hope 
1. SlocTcevs. Moistens. 2. Kyte. Belly. 


54 


KIDNAPPED 


that they might help me in my life. But I am no 
beggar ; I look for no favors at your hands, and X want 
none that are not freely given. For as poor as I appear, 
I have friends of my own that will be blithe to help me.” 

“Hoot-toot!” said Uncle Ebenezer, “dinnae fly up 
in the snuff at me ! 1 We’ll agree fine yet. And, Davie 
my man," if you’re done with that bit parritch, I could 
just take a sup of it myself. Ay,” he continued, as soon 
as he had ousted me from the stool and spoon, “they’re 
fine, halesome food — they’re grand food, parritch.” He 
murmured a little grace to himself and fell to. “Your 
father was very fond of his meat, I mind; he was a 
hearty, if not a great eater; but as for me, I could never 
do mair than pyke 2 at food.” He took a pull at the 
small beer, which probably reminded him of hospitable 
duties; for his next speech ran thus: “If ye’re dry, 
ye’ll find water behind the door.” 

To this I returned no answer, standing stiffly on my 
two feet, and looking down upon my uncle w r ith a 
mighty angry heart. He, on his part, continued to eat 
like a man under some pressure of time, and to throw 
out little darting glances now at my shoes and now 7 at 
my homespun stockings. Once only, when he had ven- 
tured to look a little higher, our eyes met ; and no thief 
taken with a hand in a man’s pocket could have shown 
more lively signals of distress. This set me in a muse, 
whether his timidity arose from too long a disuse of any 
human company; and whether perhaps, upon a little 
trial, it might pass off, and my uncle change into an 
altogether different man. From this I was awakened 
by his sharp voice. 

“Your father’s been long dead?” he asked. 

“Three w r eeks, sir,” said I. 

“He was a secret man, Alexander; a secret, silent 

1. Ply up in the snuff. Lose your teinper. 

2. Pyke. Poke. 


I MAKE ACQUAINTANCE OF MY UNCLE 55 

man,” he continued. “He never said muckle when he 
was young. He’ll never have spoken muckle of me?” 

“I never knew, sir, till you told it me yourself, that 
he had any brother.” 

“Dear me, dear me !” said Ebenezer. “Nor yet of 
Shaws, I daresay?” 

“Not so much as the name, sir,” said I. 

“To think o’ that!” said he. “A strange nature of 
a man!” For all that, he seemed singularly satisfied, 
but whether with himself, or me, or with this conduct 
of my father’s, was more than I could read. Certainly, 
however, he seemed to be outgrowing that distaste, or 
ill-will, that he had conceived at first against my person ; 
for presently he jumped up, came across the room 
behind me, and hit me a smack upon the shoulder. 
“We’ll agree fine yet!” he cried. “I’m just as glad I 
let you in. And now come awa’ to your bed.” 

To my surprise, he lit no lamp or candle, but set 
forth into the dark passage, groped his way, breathing 
deeply, up a flight of steps, and paused before a door, 
which he unlocked. I was close upon his heels, having 
stumbled after him as best I might ; and then he bade me 
go in, for that was my chamber. I did as he bid, but 
paused after a few steps, and begged a light to go to 
bed with. 

“Hoot-toot !” said Uncle Ebenezer, “there’s a fine 
moon.” 

“Neither moon nor star, sir, and pit-mirk ,” 1 said I. 
“I cannae see the bed.” 

“Hoot-loot, hoot-toot !” said he. “Lights in a house 
is a thing I dinnae agree with. I’m unco feared of 
fires. Good night to ye, Davie my man.” And before 
I had time to add a further protest, he pulled the -door 
to, and I heard him lock me in from the outside. 

I did not know whether to laugh or cry. The room 
1. Pit-mirk. Dark as the pit. 


KIDNAPPED 


5G 

was as cold as a well, and the bed, when I had found 
my way to it, as damp as a peat-hag ; 1 but by good 
fortune I had caught up my bundle and my plaid, and 
rolling myself in the latter, I lay down upon the floor 
under the lee of the big bedstead, and fell speedily 

asleep. , j 

With the first peep of day I opened my eyes, to find 
myself in a great chamber, hung with stamped leather, 
furnished with fine embroidered furniture, and lit by 
three fair windows. Ten years ago, or perhaps twenty, 
it must have been as pleasant a room to lie down or to 
awake in, as a man could wish ; but damp, dirt, disuse, 
and the mice and spiders had done their worst since 
then. Many of the window-panes, besides, were broken ; 
and indeed this was so common a feature in that house 
that I believe my uncle must at some time have stood 
a siege from his indignant neighbors — perhaps with 
Jennet Clouston at their head. 

Meanwhile the sun was shining outside; and being 
very cold in that miserable room, I knocked and shouted 
till my gaoler came and let me out. He carried me to 
the back of the house, where was a draw-well, and told 
me to “wash my face there, if I wanted ;” and when that 
was done, I made the best of my own way back to the 
kitchen, where he had lit the fire and was making the 
porridge. The table was laid with two bowls and two 
horn spoons, but the same single measure of small beer. 
Perhaps my eye rested on this particular with some sur- 
prise, and perhaps my uncle observed it; for he spoke, 
up as if in answer to my thought, asking me if I would 
like to drink ale — for so he called it. 

I told him such was my habit, but not to put himself 
about. 

“Na, na,” said he ; “I’ll deny you nothing in reason.” 

He fetched another cup from the shelf; and then, to 
1. Peat-hag. Broken moss-ground, where peat has been cut. 


I MAKE ACQUAINTANCE OF MY UNCLE 


57 


my great surprise, instead of drawing more beer, he 
poured an accurate half from one cup to the other. 
There was a kind of nobleness in this that took my 
breath away ; if my uncle was certainly a miser, he was 
one of that thorough breed that goes near to make the 
vice respectable. 

When we had made an end of our meal, my Uncle 
Ebenezer unlocked a drawer, and drew out of it a clay 
pipe and a lump of tobacco, from which he cut one fill 
before he locked it up again. Then he sat down in the 
sun at one of the windows and silently smoked. From 
time to time his eyes came coasting round to me, and 
he shot out one of his questions. Once it was, “And 
your mother?” and when I had told him that she, too, 
was dead, “Ay, she was a bonnie lassie!” Then after 
another long pause, “Whae, w r ere these friends o’ yours?” 

I told him they were different gentlemen of the name 
of Campbell; though, indeed, there was only one, and 
that the minister, that had ever taken the least note of 
me; but I began to think my uncle made too light of 
my position, and finding myself all alone with him, I 
did not wish him to suppose me helpless. 

He seemed to turn this over in his mind; and then, 
“Davie my man,” said he, “ye’ve come to the right bit 
when ye came to your Uncle Ebenezer. I’ve a great 
notion of the family and I mean to do the right by you ; 
but while I’m taking a bit think to mysel’ of what’s 
the best thing to put you to — whether the law, or the 
meenistry, or maybe the army, whilk 1 is what boys are 
fondest of — I wouldnae like the Balfours to be hum- 
bled before a wheen 2 Hieland Campbells, and I’ll ask 
you to keep your tongue within your teeth. Nae letters ; 
nae messages; no kind of word to onybody; or else — 
there’s my door.” 

“Uncle Ebenezer,” said I, “I’ve no manner of reason 

1. Whilk. Which. 2. Wheen. A few. 


KIDNAPPED 


58 

to suppose you mean anything but well by me. For 
all that, I would have you to know that I have a pride 
of my own. It was by no will of mine that I came 
seeking you ; and if you show me your door again, I’ll 
take you at the word.” 

He seemed grievously put out. “Hoots-toots,” said 
he, “ca’ cannie, man — ca’ cannie l 1 Bide a day or two. 
I’m nae warlock, 2 to find a fortune, for you in the bottom 
of a parritch bowl; but just you give me a day or two, 
and say naething to naebody, and as sure as sure, I’ll 
do the right by you.” 

“Very well,” said I, “enough said. If you want to 
help me, there’s no doubt but I’ll be glad of it, and 
none but I’ll be grateful.” 

It seemed to me (too soon, I daresay) that I was 
getting the upper hand of my uncle ; and I began next 
to say that I must have the bed and bedclothes aired and 
put to sun-dry; for nothing would make me sleep in 
such a pickle. 

“Is this my house or yours?” said he, in his keen 
voice, and then all of a sudden broke off. “Na, na,” 
said he, “I dinnae mean that. What’s mine is yours, 
Davie my man, and what’s yours is mine. Blood’s 
thicker than water ; and there’s naebody but you and me 
that ought 3 the name.” And then on he rambled about 
the family, and its ancient greatness, and his father that 
began to enlarge the house, and himself that stopped 
the building as a sinful waste; and this put it in my 
head to give him Jennet Clouston’s message. 

“The limmer !” 4 he cried. “Twelve hunner and 
fifteen — that’s every day since I had the limmer row- 
pit! 5 Dod, Davie, I’ll have her roasted on red peats 

1. Ca ’ cannie. Literally, drive slowly ; “go easy.” 

2. Warlock. Wizard. 

3. Ought. Lay claim to. 

4. Limmer. A woman of lo<fse manners. 

5. Rowpit. Sold out at auction. 


1 MAKE ACQUAINTANCE OF MY UNCLE 59 

I . . ^ ^ S3 

before I’m by with it ! A witch — a proclaimed witch ! 
I’ll aff and see the session clerk.” 1 

And with that he opened a chest, and got out a very 
old and well-preserved blue coat and waistcoat, and a 
good enough beaver hat, both without lace. These he 
threw on anyway, and taking a staff from the cupboard, 
locked all up again, and was for setting out, when a 
thought arrested him. 

“I cannae leave you by yoursel’ in the house,” said 
he. “I’ll have to lock you out.” 

The blood came into my face. “If you lock me out,” 
I said, “it’ll be the last you see of me in friendship.” 

He turned very pale, and sucked his mouth in. “This 
is no the way,” he said, looking wickedly at a corner 
of the floor — “this is no the way to win my favor, 
David.” 

“Sir,” sa3 r s I, “with a proper reverence for your age 
and our common blood, I do not value your favor at 
a boddle’s 2 purchase. I was brought up to have a 
good conceit of myself", and if you were all the. uncle, 
and all the family I had in the world ten times over, 

I wouldn’t buy your liking at such prices.” 

Uncle Ebenezer went ^.nd looked out of the window 
for a while. I could see him all trembling and twitch- 
ing, like a man with* palsy. But when he turned round, 
he had a smile upon his face. 

“Well, well,” said he, “we must bear and forbear. 
I’ll no go; that’s all that’s to be said of it.” 

“Uncle Ebenezer,” I said, “I can make nothing out 
of this. You use me like a thief ; you hate to have me 
in this house; you let me see it, every word and every 
minute; it’s not possible that you can like me; and as 
for me, I’ve spoken to you as I never thought to speak 

1. Session clerk. Clerk of a church session ; that is, of the lowest 
governing body of the Presbyterian Church. 

2. Boddle. An old Scotch coin, worth about one-third of a cent. 


KIDNAPPED 


60 

2 i 

to any man. Why do you seek to keep me, then? Let 
me gang back — let me gang back to the friends I have, 
and that like me!” 

“Na, ha; na, na,” he said, very earnestly. “I like 
you fine; we’ll agree fine yet; and for the honor of 
the house I couldnae let you leave the way ye came. 
Bide here quiet, there’s a good lad; just you bide here 
quiet a bittie, and ye’ll find that we agree.” 

“Well, sir,” said I, after I had thought the matter 
out in silence, “I’ll stay a while. It’s more just I should 
be helped by my own blood than strangers; and if we 
don’t agree, I’ll do my best it shall be through no 
fault of mine.” 


CHAPTER IV 


I RUN A GREAT DANGER IN THE HOUSE OF SHAWS 

For a day that was begun so ill, the day passed 
fairly well. We had the porridge cold again at noon, 
and hot porridge at night; porridge and small beer 
j was my uncle’s diet. He spoke but little, and that in 
the same way as before, shooting a question at me after 
a long silence; and when I sought to lead him in talk 
about my future, slipped out of it again. In a room 
next door to the kitchen, where he suffered me to go, I 
found a great number of books, both Latin and English, 
in which I took great pleasure all the afternoon. Indeed 
the time passed so lightly in this good company, that I 
began to be almost reconciled to my residence at Shaws ; 
and nothing but the sight of my uncle, and his eyes 
playing hide and seek with mine, revived the force of my 
distrust. 

One thing I discovered, which put me in some doubt. 
This w r as an entry on the fly-leaf of a chapbook 1 (one 
of Patrick Walker’s) plainly written by my father’s 
hand and thus conceived: “To my brother Ebenezer 
on his fifth birthday.” Now, what puzzled me was this: 
That as my father was of course the younger brother, 
he must either have made some strange error, or he must 
have written, before he was yet five, an excellent, clear, 
manly hand of writing. 

I tried to get this out of my head ; but though I 
took down many interesting authors, old and new, his- 

1. Chapbook. A cheap book, usually in the form of a pamphlet, 
containing tales, ballads, etc. ; possibly in this case a memorandum 
book. 

61 

X.S 


KIDNAPPED 


62 

tory, poetry, and story-book, this notion of my father’s 
hand of writing stuck to me; and when at length I 
went back into the kitchen, and sat down once more to 
porridge and small beer, the first thing I said to Uncle 
Ebenezer was to ask him if my father had not been 
very quick at his book. 

“Alexander? No him!” was the reply. “I was far 
quicker mysel’ ; I was a clever chappie when I was young. 
Why, I could read as soon as he could.” 

This puzzled me yet more; and a thought coming 
into my head, I asked if he and my father had been 
twins. ' * 

He jumped upon his stool, and the horn spoon fell 
out of his hand upon the floor. “What gars 1 ye ask 
that?” he said, and he caught me by the brfcast of the 
jacket, and looked this time straight into my eyes; his 
own, which were little and light, and bright like a bird’s, 
blinking and winking strangely. 

“What do you mean?” I asked, very calmly, for I 
was far stronger than he, and not easily frightened. 
“Take your hand from my jacket. This is no way to ! 
behave.” 

My uncle seemed to make a great effort upon himself. 
“Dod, man David,” he said, “ye shouldnae speak to I 
me about your father. That’s where the mistake is.” 
He sat a while and shook, blinking in his plate: “He 
was all the brother that ever I had,” he added, but w T ith 
no heart in his voice ; and then he caught up his spoon 
and fell to supper again, but still shaking. 

Now this last passage, this laying of hands upon; 
my person and sudden profession of love for my dead' 
father, went so clean beyond my comprehension that it 
put me into both fear and hope. On the one hand, I 
began to think my uncle was perhaps insane and might 
be dangerous; on the other, there came up into my mind 
1. Gars. Makes. 


GREAT DANGER IN THE HOUSE OF SHAWS 63 

I . ' i/ 

(quite unbidden by me and even discouraged) a story 
like some ballad I bad heard folk singing, of a poor 
lad that was a rightful heir and a wicked kinsman that 
tried to keep him from his own. For why should my 
uncle play a part with a relative that came, almost a 
beggar, to his door, unless in his heart he had some cause 
to fear him? 

With this notion, all unacknowledged, but neverthe- 
less getting firmly settled in my head, I now began to 
imitate his covert looks ; so that we sat at table like a 
cat and a mouse, each stealthily observing the other. 
Not another word had he to say to me, black or white, 
but was busy turning something secretly over in his 
mind ; and the longer we sat and the more I looked at 
him, the more certain I became that the something was 
unfriendly to myself. 

When he had cleared the platter, he got out a single 
pipeful of tobacco, just as in the morning, turned round 
a stool into the chimney corner, and sat a while smoking, 
with his back to me. 

“Davie,” he said, at length, “I’ve been thinking;”' 
then he paused, and sajd it again. “There’s a wee bit 
siller that I half promised ye before ye were born,” he 
continued; “promised it to your father. O, naething 
legal, ye understand; just gentlemen daffing 1 at their 
wine. Well, I keepit that bit money separate — it was 
a great expense, but a promise is a promise — and it 
has grown by now to be a matter of just precisely — 
just exactly” — and here he paused and stumbled — “of 
just exactly forty pounds!” This last he rapped out 
with a sidelong glance over his shoulder; and the next 
.moment added, almost with a scream, “Scots !” 

The pound Scots being the same thing as an English 
shilling, the difference made by this second thought was 
considerable; I could see, besides, that the whole story 

1. Daffing. Talking foolishly. 


KIDNAPPED 


64 

was a lie, invented with some. end. w r hich it puzzled me; 
to guess; and I macje no attempt to conceal the tone of; 
raillery in which I answered: 

“0, think again, sir! Pounds sterling, I believe!” 

“That’s what I said,” returned my uncle; “pounds 
sterling! And if you’ll step out-by to the door a minute, j 
just to see what kind of a night it is, I’ll get it out to* 
ye and call ye in again.” 

I did his will, smiling to myself in my contempt that 
he should think I was so easily to be deceived. It was 
a dark night, w T ith a few stars low down ; and as I stood 
just outside the door, I heard a hollow moaning of wind 
far off among the hills. I said to myself there was 
something thundery and changeful in the w r eather, and 
little knew of what a vast importance that should prove 
to me before the evening passed. 

When I w r as called in again, my uncle counted out into 
my- hand seven and thirty golden guinea pieces; the 
rest was in his hand, in small gold and silver ; but his 
heart failed him there, and he crammed the change into 
his pocket. 

“There,” said he, “that’ll show you ! I’m a queer 
man, and strange wi’ strangers ; but my word is my 
bond, and there’s the proof of it.” 

Now, my uncle seemed so miserly that I was struck 
dumb by this sudden generosity, and could find no words 
in which to thank him, 

“No a word!” said he. “Nae thanks; I want nae 
thanks. I do my duty ; I’m no saying that everybody 
w^ould have done it; but for my part (though I’m a 
careful body, too) it’s a pleasure to me to' do the right 
D J m y brother’s son ; and it’s a pleasure to me to think 
that now we’ll agree as such near friends should.” 

I spoke him in return as handsomely as I was able; 
but all the while I was wondering what would come next, 
and why he had parted with his precious guineas ; for 


GREAT DANGER IN THE HOUSE OF SHAWS 65 

as to the reason he had given, a baby would have 
refused it. 

Presently, he looked toward me sideways: 

“And see here,” says he, “tit for tat.” 

I told him I was ready to prove my gratitude in 
any reasonable degree, and then waited, looking for 
some monstrous demand. And yet, when at last, he 
plucked up courage to speak, it was only to tell me 
(very properly, as I thought) that he was growing old 
and a little broken, and that he would expect me to 
help him with the house and the bit garden. 

I answered, and expressed my readiness to serve. 

“Well,” he said, “let’s begin.” He pulled out of his 
pocket a rusty key. “There,” says he, “there’s the 
key of the stair-tower at the far end of the house. Ye 
can only win into it from the outside, for that part of 
the house is no finished. Gang ye in there, and up the 
stairs, and bring me down the chest that’s at the top. 
There’s papers in’t,” he added. 

“Can I have a light, sir?” said I. 

“Na,” said he, very cunningly. “Nae lights in my 
house.” 

“Very well, sir,” said I. “Are the stairs good?” 

“They’re grand,” said he; and then as I was going, 
“Keep to the wall,” he added; “there’s nae bannisters. 
But the stairs are grand underfoot.” 

Out I went into the night. The wind was still 
moaning in the distance, though never a breath of it 
came near the house of Shaws. It had fallen blacker 
than ever; and I was glad to feel along the wall, till I 
came the length of the stair-tower door at the far end 
of the unfinished wing. I had got the key into the 
keyhole and had just turned it, when all upon a sudden, 
without sound of wind or thunder, the whole sky was 
lighted up with wild fire and went black again. I had 
to put my hand over my eyes to get back to the color 


KIDNAPPED 


66 

2C ; 

of the darkness ; and indeed I was already half blinded 

when I stepped into the tower. 

It was so dark inside, it seemed a body could scarce 
breathe; but I pushed out with foot and hand, and 
presently struck the wall with the one, and the lowermost 
round of the stair with the other. The wall, by the 
touch, was of fine hewn stone ; the steps too, though 
somewhat steep and narrow, were of polished mason- 
work, and regular and solid under foot. Minding my 
uncle’s word about the bannisters, I kept close to the 
tower side, and felt my way up in the pitch darkness 
with a beating heart. 

The house of Shaws stood some five full stories high, 
not counting lofts. Well, as I advanced,' it seemed to 
me the stair grew airier and a thought more lightsome ; 
and I was wondering what might be the cause of this 
change, when a second blink of the summer lightning 
came and went. If I did not cry out, it was because 
fear had me by the throat ; and if I did not fall, it 
was more by Heaven’s mercy than my own strength. 
It was not only that the flash shone in on every side 
through breaches in the wall, so that I seemed to be 
clambering aloft upon an open scaffold, but the same 
passing brightness showed me the steps were of unequal 
length, and that one of my feet rested that moment 
within two inches of the well. 

This was the grand stair! I thought; and with the 
thought a gust of a kind of angry courage came into 
my heart. My uncle had sent me here, certainly to run 
great risks, perhaps to die. I swore I would settle that 
“perhaps,” if I should break my neck for it; got me 
down upon my hands and knees; and as slowly as a 
snail, feeling before me every inch, and testing the 
solidity of every stone, I continued to ascend the stair. 
The darkness, by contrast with the flash, appeared to 
have redoubled; nor was that all; for my ears were 


GREAT DANGER IN THE HOUSE OF SHAWS 67 

1 / 

now troubled and my mind confounded by a great stir 
of bats in the top part of the tower, and the foul beasts, 
flying downwards, sometimes beat about my face, and 
body. 

The tower, I should have said, was square; and in 
every corner the step was made of a great stone of a 
different shape, to join the flights. Well, I had come 
close to one of these turns, when, feeling forward as 
usual, my hand slipped upon an edge and found nothing 
but emptiness beyond it. The stair had been carried 
no higher: to set a stranger mounting it in the dark- 
ness was to send him straight to his death ; and 
(although, thanks to the lightning and my own pre- 
cautions, I was safe enough) the mere thought of the 
peril in which I might have stood, and the dreadful 
height I might have fallen from, brought out the sweat 
upon my body anc( relaxed my joints. 

But I knew w r hat I wanted now, and turned and 
groped my way down again, with a wonderful anger 
in my heart. About half-way down, the wind sprang 
up in a clap and shook the tow er, and died again ; the 
rain followed; and before I had reached the ground 
level, it fell in buckets. I put out my head into the storm, 
and looked along toward the kitchen. The door, which 
I had shut behind me when I left, now stood open, and 
shed a little glimmer of light; and I thought I could 
see a figure standing in the rain, quite still, like a man 
hearkening. And then there came a blinding flash, 
w r hich showed me my uncle plainly, just wdiere I had 
fancied him to stand; and hard upon the heels of it, a 
great tow-row of thunder. 

Now, whether my uncle thought the crash to be the 
sound of my fall, or whether he heard in it God’s voice 
denouncing murder, I will leave you to guess. Certain 
it is, at least, that he was seized on by a kind of panic 
fear, and that he ran into the house and left the door 


KIDNAPPED 


<>S 

open behind hinj. I followed as softly as I could, and, 
coming unheard into the kitchen, stood and watched him. j 

He had found time to open the corner cupboard and j 
bring out a great case bottle of aqua vitae , 1 and now j 
sat with his back toward me at the table. Ever and j 
again he would be seized with a fit of deadly shuddering 
and groan aloud, and carrying the bottle to his lips, ; 
drink down the raw spirits by the mouthful. 

I stepped forward, came close behind him where he 
sat, and suddenly clapping my two hands down upon 
his shoulders— “Ah !” cried I. 

My uncle gave a kind of broken cry like a sheep’s 
bleat, flung up his arms, and tumbled to the floor like 
a dead man. I was somewhat shocked at this; but I 
had myself to look to first of all, and did not hesitate 
to let him lie as he had fallen. The keys were hanging 
in the cupboard ; and it was my design to f ufnish myself 
w T ith arms before my uncle should come again to his 
senses and the power of devising evil. In the cupboard 
were a few bottles, some apparently of medicine; a 
great many bills and other papers, which I should will 
ingly enough have rummaged, had I had the time ; and 
a few necessaries, that were nothing to my purpose. I 
Thence I turned to the chests. The first was full of 
meal; the second of money-bags and papers tied into 
sheaves; in the third, with many other things (and i 
these for the most part of clothes) I found a rusty ugly- 
looking Highland dirk without the scabbard. This, 
then, I concealed inside my waistcoat, and turned to I 
my uncle. 

He lay as he had fallen, all huddled, with one knee 
up and one arm sprawling abroad ; his face had a strange ! 
color of blue, and be seemed to have ceased breathing, j 
Fear came on me that he was dead; then I got water 
and dashed it in his face; and with that he seemed to 
1. Aqua vitce. Any form of distilled spirits. 


GREAT DANGER IN THE HOUSE OF SHAWS 69 

come a little to himself, working his mouth and fluttering 
his eyelids. At last he looked up and saw me, and there 
came into his eyes a terror that was not of this world. 

“Come, come,” said I, “sit up.” 

“Are ye alive?”* he sobbed. “O man, are ye alive?” 

“That am I,” said I. “Small thanks to you !” 

He had begun to seek for his breath with deep sighs. 

; “The blue phial,” said he — “in the aumry 1 — the blue 
phial.” His breath came slower still. 

I ran to the cupboard, and, sure enough, found there 
a blue phial of medicine, with the dose written on it 
on a paper, and this I administered to him with what 
speed I might. 

“It’s the trouble,” said he, reviving a little; “I have 
a trouble, Davie. It’s the heart.” 

I set him on a chair and looked at him. It is true 
I felt some pity for a man that looked so sick, but I 
was full besides of righteous anger; and I numbered 
over before him the points on which I wanted explana- 
tion: why he lied to me at every word; why he feared 
that I should leave him; why he disliked it to be hinted 
that he and my father were twins — “Is that because it 
is true?” I asked; why he had given me money to 
which I was convinced I had no claim; and, last of all, 
why he had tried to kill me. He heard me all through 
in silence; and then, in a broken voice, begged me to 
let him go to bed. 

“I’ll tell ye the morn,” he said ; “as sure as death 
I will.” 

And so weak was he that I could do nothing but con- 
sent. I locked him into his room, however, and pocketed 
the key; and then returning to the kitchen, made up 
such a blaze as had not shone there for many a long 
year, and wrapping myself in my plaid, lay down upon 
the chests and fell asleep. 

1. Aumry. A large cupboard, for food and household articles. 


CHAPTER V 

I GO TO THE QUEEN’S FERRY 

Much rain fell in the night ; and the next morning 
there blew a bitter wintry wind out of the north-west,, 
driving scattered clouds. For all that, and before the 
sun began to peep or the last of the stars had vanished, 
I made my way to the side of the burn, and had a 
plunge in a deep whirling pool. All aglow from my 
bath, I sat down once more beside t the fire, which I 
replenished, and began gravely to consider my position. 

There was now no doubt about my uncle’s enmity ; 
there was no doubt I carried my life in my hand, and 
he would leave no stone unturned that he might compass 
my destruction. But I was young and spirited, and 
like most lads that have been country-bred, I had a 
great opinion of my shrewdness. I had come to his door 
no better than a beggar and little more than a child; 
he had met me with treachery and violence ; it would be 
a fine consummation to take the upper hand, and drive 
him like a herd of sheep. 

I sat there nursing my knee and smiling at the fire; 
and I saw myself in fancy smell out his secrets one after 
another, and grow to be that man’s king and ruler. 
The warlock of Essendean, they say, had made a mirror 
in which men could read the future; it must have been 
of other stuff than burning coal; for in all the shapes 
and pictures that I sat and gazed at, there was never a 
ship, never a seaman with a hairy cap, never a big 
bludgeon for my silly head, or the least sign of all those 
tribulations that were ripe to fall on me. 

70, 


I GO TO THE QUEEN’S FERRY 71 

Presently, all swollen with conceit, I went up-stairs 
and gave my prisoner his liberty. He gave me good 
| morning civilly ; and I gave the same to him, smiling 
down upon him from the heights of my sufficiency. Soon 
we were set to breakfast, as it might have been the day 
before. 

“Well, sir,” said I, with a jeering tone, “have you 
nothing more to say to me?” And then, as he made 
: no articulate reply, “It will be time, I think, to under- 
stand each other,” I continued. “You took me for a 
country Johnnie Raw, with no more mother-wit or 
courage than a porridge-stick. I took you for a good 
man, or no worse than others at the least. It seems we 
were both wrong. What cause you have to fear me, to 
cheat me, and to attempt my life ” 

He murmured something about a jest, and that he 
liked a bit of fun ; and then, seeing me smile, changed 
his tone, and assured me he would make all clear as 
soon as we had breakfasted. I saw by his face that 
he had no lie ready for me, though he was hard at work 
preparing one; and I think I was about to tell him so, 
when we were interrupted by a knocking at the door. 

Bidding my uncle sit where he was, I went to open it, 
and found on the doorstep a half-grown boy in sea- 
clothes. He had no sooner seen me than he began to 
dance some steps of the sea-hornpipe (which I had never 
before heard of, far less seen), snapping his fingers in 
the air and footing it right cleverly. For all that, he 
w r as blue with the cold; and there was something in his 
face, a look between tears and laughter, that was highly 
pathetic and consisted ill with this gayety of manner. 

“What cheer, mate?” says he, with a cracked voice. 

I asked him soberly to name his pleasure. 

“0, pleasure!” says he; and then began to sing: 

“For it’s my delight, of a shiny night 
In the season of the year." 


KIDNAPPED 


72 

2 * 


f 


“Well,” said I, “if you have no pleasure at all, I will 
even be so unmannerly as shut you out.” 

“Stay, brother!” he cried. “Have you no fun about 
you? or do you want to get me thrashed? I’ve brought 
a letter from old Heasy-oasy to Mr. Belflower.” He 
showed me a letter as he spoke. “And I say, mate,” 
he added, “I’m mortal hungry.” 

“Well,” said I, “come into the house, and you shall 
have a bite if I go empty for it.” 

With that I brought him in and set him down to my 
own place, where he fell-to greedily on the remains of 
breakfast, winking to me between whiles, and making j 
many faces, which I think the poor soul considered 
manly. Meanwhile, my uncle had read the letter and sat 
thinking; then, suddenly, he got to his feet with a great 
air of liveliness, and pulled me apart into the farthest 
corner of the room. 

“Read that,” said he, and put the letter in my hand. I 

Here it is, lying before me as I write* 


“The Dawes Inn, at the lueen’s Ferry. 

Sir, I lie here with my hawser up and do\. and send my 
cabin-boy to informe. If you have any further commands for i 
over-seas, to-day will be the last occasion, as the wind will serve as 
well out of the firth. I will not seek to deny that I have had 
crosses with your doer,i Mr. Rankeillor; of which, if not speedily i 
redd up, you may looke to see . some losses follow. I have drawn ■ 
a bill upon you, as per margin, and am, sir, your most obedt., . 
humble servant. “ Elias Hoseason.” ] 

“You see, Davie,” resumed my uncle, as soon as he 
saw that I had done, “I have a venture with this man 
Hoseason, the captain of a trading brig, the Covenant , j 
of Dysart. Now 7 , if you and me was to walk over with 
yon lad, I could see the captain at the Hawes, or maybe 
on board the Covenant, if there was papers to be signed ; 
and so far from a loss of time> we can jog on to the 
lawyer, Air. Rankeillor’s. After a’ that’s come and gone, 

1. Doer. Agent. 


/ GO TO THE QUEEN’S FERRY 


73 

5*0 

ye would be swier 1 to believe me upon my naked word; 
but ye’ll can believe Rankeillor. He’s factor 2 to half 
the gentry in these parts; an auld man, forby: 3 highly 
respeckit; and he kenned your father.” 

I stood a while and thought. I was going to some 
place of shipping, which was doubtless populous, and 
where my uncle durst attempt no violence, and, indeed, 
even the society of the cabin-boy so far protected me. 
Once there, I believed I could force on the visit to the 
lawyer, even if my uncle were now insincere in pro- 
posing it: and perhaps, in the bottom of my heart, 
I wished a nearer view of the sea and ships. You are 
to remember I had lived all my life in the inland hills, 
and just two days before had my first sight of the firth 
lying like a blue floor, and the sailed ships moving on 
the face of it, no bigger than toys. One thing with 
another, I made up my mind. 

“Very well,” -says- 1, = “let us go to the ferry.” 

My uncle got into his hat and coat, and buckled an 
old rusty cutlass on ; and then we trod the fire out, 
locked the door, and set forth upon our walk. 

The wind, being in that cold quarter, the north- 
west, blew nearly in our faces as we went. It was the 
month of June; the grass was all white with daisies 
and the trees with blossom; but, to judge by our blue 
nails and aching wrists, the time might have be£n winter 
and the whiteness a December frost. 

Uncle Ebenezer trudged in the ditch, jogging from 
side to side like an old ploughman coming home from 
work. He never said a word the whole way ; and I 
was thrown for talk on the cabin-boy. He told me 
his name was Ransome, and that he had followed the 
sea since he was nine, but could not say how old he 
was, as he had lost his reckoning. He showed me tattoo 
marks, baring his breast in the teeth of the wund and 

1. Swier. Unwilling. 2. Factor. Agent. 3. Forty. Besides. 


KIDNAPPED 


74 

3 # 

in spite of my remonstrances, for I thought it was 
enough to kill him ; he swore horribly whenever he 
remembered, but more like a silly schoolboy than a man ; 
and boasted of many wild and bad things that he had 
done: stealthy thefts, false accusations, ay, and even | 
murder; but all with such a dearth of likelihood in the I 
details, and such a weak and crazy swagger in the 
delivery, as disposed me rather to pity than to believe 
him. 

I asked him of the brig (which he declared was the 
finest ship that sailed) and of Captain Hoseason, in ! 
whose praise he was equally loud. Heasy-oasy (for so 
he still named the skipper) was a man, by his account, 
that minded for nothing either in heaven or earth; one 
that,* as people said, would “crack on all sail into the i 
day of judgment;” rough, fierce, unscrupulous, and 
brutal; and all this my poor cabin-boy had taught him- 
self to admire as something seamanlike and manly. He 
would only admit one flaw in his idol. “He ain’t no 
seaman,” he admitted. “That’s Mr. Shuan that navi- j 
gates the brig; he’s the finest seaman in the trade, only \ 
for drink; and I tell you I believe it! Why, look ] 
’ere;” and turning down his stocking, he showed me a 
great, raw, red wound that made my blood run cold. 
“He done that — Mr. Shuan done it,” he said, with an j 
air of pride. 

“What !” I cried, “do you take such savage usage 1 
at his hands P Why, you are no slave to be so handled !” 

“No,” said the poor moon-calf, changing his tune ; 
at once, “and so he’ll find! See ’ere;” and he showed j 
me a great case-knife, which he told me was stolen. 
“O,” says he, “let me see him try ; I dare him to ; I’ll 
do for him! O, he ain’t the first!” And he confirmed 
it with a poor, silly, ugly oath. 

I have never felt such a pity for any one in this 


1 GO TO THE QUEEN’ 8 FERRY 75 

! wide world as I felt for that half-witted creature; and 
it began to come over me that the brig Covenant (for 
all her pious name) was little better than a hell upon 
the seas. 

“Have you no friends?” said I. 

He said he had a father in some English seaport, I 
forget which. “He was a fine man, too,” he said; “but 
; he’s dead.” 

“In Heaven’s name,” cried I, “can you find no 
reputable life on shore?” 

“O, no ;” says he, winking and looking very sly : 
“they would put me to a trade. I know a trick worth 
two of that, I do !” 

I asked him what trade could be so dreadful as the 
one he followed, where he ran the continual peril of 
his life, not alone from wind and sea, but by the horrid 
cruelty of those who were his masters. He said it was 
very true; and then began to praise the life, and tell 
what a pleasure it was to get on shore with money in 
his pocket, and spend it like a man, and buy apples, 
and swagger, and surprise what he called stick-in-the- 
mud boys. “And* then it’s not all as bad as that,” 
says he ; “there’s worse off than me : there’s the twenty- 
pounders. O, laws ! you should see them taking on. 
Why, I’ve seen a man as old as you, I dessay” — (to 
him I seemed old) — “ah, and he had a beard, too — 
well, and as soon as we cleared out of the river, and he 
had the drug out of his head — my ! how he cried and 
carried on ! I made a fine fool of him, I tell you ! 
And then there’s little uns, too : O, little by me ! I tell 
you, I keep them in order. When we carry little uns, 
I have a rope’s end of my own to wallop ’em.” And 
so he ran on, until it came in on me that what he meant 
by twenty-pounders were those unhappy criminals who 
were sent over-seas to slavery in North America, or the 


KIDNAPPED 


76 

Vd 

still more unhappy innocents who were kidnapped or 
trepanned (as the word went) for private interests or 
vengeance. 

Just then we came to the top of the hill, and looked 
down on the Ferry and the Hope. The Firth of Forth 
(as is very well known) narrows at this point to the j 
width of a good-sized river, which makes a convenient ! 
ferry going north, and turns the upper reach into a 
land-locked haven for all manner of ships. Right in the | 
midst of the narrows lies an islet with some ruins; on 
the south shore they have built a pier for the service j 
of the ferry; and at the end of the pier, on the other , 
side of the road, and backed against a pretty garden 
of holly-trees and hawthorns, I could see the building 
which they called the Hawes Inn. 

The town of Queensferry lies farther west, and the 
neighborhood of the inn looked pretty lonely at that 
time of day, for the boat had just gone north with 
passengers. A skiff, however, lay beside the pier, with 
some seamen sleeping on the thwarts; this, as Ransome 
told me, was the brig’s boat waiting for the captain ; 
and about half a mile off, and all alone in the anchorage, 
he showed me the Covenant herself. There was a sea- | 
going bustle on board ; yards were swinging into place ; 
and as the wind blew from that quarter, I could hear the 
song of the sailors as they pulled upon the ropes. ■! 
After all I had listened to upon the way, I looked at 
that ship with an extreme abhorrence; and from the 
bottom of my heart I pitied all poor souls that were 
condemned to sail in her. 

We had all three pulled up on the brow of the hill; 
and now I marched across the road and addressed my 
uncle. “I think it right to tell you, sir,” said I, “there’s 
nothing that will bring me on board that Covenant .” 

He seemed to waken from a dream. “Eh?” he said. 
“What’s that?” 


/ 


I GO TO THE QUEEN'S FERRY 


77 

V/ 


I told him over again. 

“Well, well,” he said, “we’ll have to please ye, I 
suppose. But what are we standing here for? It’s 
perishing cold : and if I’m no mistaken, they’re busking 1 
the Covenant for sea.” 

1. Busking. Preparing. 




CHAPTER VI 


WHAT BEFELL AT THE QUEEN’S FERRY 

As soon as we came to the inn, Ransome led us up 
the stair to a small room, with a bed in it > and heated 
like an oven by a great fire of coal. At a table hard by 
the chimney, a tall, dark, sober-looking man sat writing. 
In spite of the heat of the room, he wore a thick sea- 
jacket, buttoned to the neck, and a tall hairy cap drawn 
down over his ears; yet I never saw any man, not even 
a judge upon the bench, look cooler, or more studious 
and self-possessed, than this ship captain. 

He got to his feet at once, and coming forward, of- 
fered his large hand to Ebenezer. “I am proud to see 
you, Mr. Balfour,” said he, in a fine deep voice, “and 
glad that ye are here in time. The wind’s fair, and the 
tide upon the turn: we’ll see the old coal-bucket burning 
on the Isle of May before to-night.” 

“Captain Hoseason,” returned my uncle, “you keep 
your room unco’ hot.” 

“It’s a habit I have, Mr. Balfour,” said the skipper. 
“I’m a cold-rife man by my nature; I have a cold 
blood, sir. There’s neither fur, nor flannel — no, sir, 
nor hot rum, will warm up what they call the tem- 
perature. Sir, it’s the same with most men that have 
been carbonadoed , 1 as they call it, in the tropic seas.” 

“Well, well, captain,” replied my uncle, “we must 
all be the way we’re made.” 

But it chanced that this fancy of the captain’s had 
a great share in my misfortunes. For though I had 

1. Carbonadoed. Literally, slashed, or scored, and broiled ; here, 
broiled. 


78 


WHAT BEFELL AT THE QUEEN’S FERRY 79 

promised myself not to let my kinsman out of sight, 
I was both so impatient for a nearer look of the sea, 
and so sickened by the closeness of the room, that when 
he told me to “run down-stairs and play myself a 
while,” I was fool enough to take him at his word. 

Away I went, therefore, leaving the two men sitting 
down to a bottle and a great mass of papers; and 
crossing the road in front of the inn, walked down 
upon the beach. With the wind in that quarter, only 
little wavelets, not much bigger than I had seen upon 
a lake, beat upon the shore. But the weeds were new 
to me — some green, some brown and long, and some with 
little bladders that crackled between my fingers. Even 
so far up the firth, the smell of the sea water was 
exceeding salt and stirring; the Covenant , besides, was 
beginning to shake out her sails, which hung upon the 
yards in clusters; and the spirit of all that I beheld 
put me in thoughts of far voyages and foreign places. 

I looked, too, at the seamen with the skiff* — big 
brown fellows, some in shirts, some with jackets, some 
with colored handkerchiefs about their throats, one with 
a brace of pistols stuck into his pockets, two or three 
with knotty bludgeons, and all with their case-knives. 
I, passed the time of day with one that looked less des- 
perate than his fellows, and asked him of the sailing 
of the brig. He said they would get under way as 
soon as the ebb set, and expressed his gladness to be 
out of a port where there were no taverns and fiddlers; 
but all with such horrifying oaths, that I made haste 
to get away from him. 

This threw T me back on Ransome, who seemed the 
least wicked of the gang, and who soon came out of 
the inn and ran to me, crying for a bowl of punch. 
I told him I would give him no such thing, for neither 
he nor I was of age for such indulgences. “But a glass 
of ale you may have, and welcome,” said T. He mopped 


KIDNAPPED 


80 

and mowed 1 at me, and called me names ; but he w T as 
glad to get the ale, for all that ; and presently we were 
set down at a table in the front room of the inn, and 
both eating and drinking with a good appetite. 

Here it occurred to me that, as the landlord was a 
man of that country, I might do well to make a friend 
of him. I offered him a share, as was much the custom 
in these days; but he was far too great a man to sit 
with such poor customers as Ransome and myself, and 
he was leaving the room, when I called him back to 
ask if he knew Mr. Rankeillor. 

“Hoot, ay,” says he, “and a very honest man. And, 
O, by-the-bye,” says he, “was it. you that came in with 
Ebenezer?” And when I had told him yes, “Ye’ll be 
no friend of his?” he asked, meaning, in the Scottish 
way, that I would be no relative. 

I told him no, none. 

“I thought not,” said he; “and yet ye have a kind 
of gliff 2 of Mr. Alexander.” 

I said it seemed that Ebenezer was ill-seen 3 in the 
country. 

“Nae doubt,” said the landlord. “He’s a wicked auld 
man, and there’s many would like to see him girnirig 
in a tow : 4 Jennet Clouston and mony mair that he 
has harried out of house and hame. And yet he was 
ance a fine young fellow, too. But that was before the 
sough 5 gaed abroad about Mr. Alexander; that was 
like the death of him.” 

“And what was it?” I asked. 

“Ou, just that he had killed him,” said the landlord. 
“Did ye never hear that?” 

“And what would he kill him for?” said I. 

1. Mopped and mowed. Made wry faces. 

2. Gliff. Look. 

3. Ill-seen. Of evil reputation. 

4. Girning in a tow. Grinning in a rope. ' 

5. Sough. Report ; rumor. 


WHAT BEFELL AT THE QUEEN’S FERRY 81 

u 

“And what for, but just to get the place,” said he. 

“The place?” said I. “The Shaws?” 

“Nae other place that I ken,” said he. 

“Ay, man?” said I. x “Is that so? Was my — was 
Alexander the eldest son?” 

“ ’Deed was he,” said the landlord. “What else would 
he have killed him for?” 

And with that he went away, as he had been 
impatient to do from the beginning. 

Of course, I had guessed it a long while ago; but it 
is one thing to guess, another to know; and I sat 
stunned with my good fortune, and could scarce grow 
to believe that the same poor lad who had trudged in 
the dust from Ettrick Forest not two days ago, w r as 
now one of the rich of the earth, and had a house and 
broad lands, and if he but knew how to ride, might 
mount his horse to-morrow. All these pleasant things, 
and a thousand others, crowded into my mind, as I sat 
staring before me out of the inn window, and paying 
no heed to what I saw; only I remember that my eye 
lighted on Captain Hoseason down on the pier among 
his seamen, and speaking with some authority. And 
presently he came marching back toward the house, 
with no mark of a sailor’s clumsiness, but carrying his 
fine, tall figure with a manly bearing, and still with 
the same sober, grave expression on his face. I won- 
dered if it was possible that Ransomc’s stories could 
be true, and half disbelieved them; they fitted so ill 
wuth the man’s looks. Buf indeed, he was neither so 
good as I supposed him, nor quite so bad as Ransome 
did; for, in fact, he was two men, and left the better 
one behind as soon as he set foot on board his vessel. 

The next thing, I heard my uncle calling me, and 
found the pair in the road together. It was the captain 
who addressed me, and that yrith an air (very flattering 
to a young lad) of grave equality. 


KIDNAPPED 


82 

“Sir,” said he, “Mr. Balfour tells me great things 
of you; and for my own part, I like your looks. I 
w T ish I was for longer here, that we might make the 
better friends ; but we’ll make the most of what we 
have. Ye shall come on board my brig for half-an-hour, 
till the ebb sets, and drink a bowl with me.” 

Now, I longed to see the inside of a ship more than 
words can tell; but I was not going to put myself in 
jeopardy, and I told him my uncle and I had an 
appointment with a lawyer. 

“Ay, ay,” said he, “he passed me word of that. But, 
ye see, the boat’ll set ye ashore at the town pier, and 
that’s but a penny stonecast 1 from Rankeillor’s house.” 
And here he suddenly leaned down and whispered in 
my ear : “Take care of the old tod ; 2 he means mis- 
chief. Come aboard till I can get a w r ord wuth ye.” 
And then, passing his arm through mine, he continued 
aloud, as he set off toward his N boat: “But come, what 
can I bring ye from the Carolinas? Any friend of 
Mr. Balfour’s can command. A roll of tobacco? Indian 
featherwork? a skin of a w r ild beast? a stone pipe? 
the mocking-bird that mews for all the w T orld like a cat? 
the cardinal bird that is as red as blood? — take your 
pick and say your pleasure.” 

By this time we were at the boat-side, and he w^as 
handing me in. I did not dream of hanging back; I 
thought (the poor fool!) that I had found a good 
friend and helper, and I was rejoiced to see the ship. 
As soon as we were all set in our places, the boat was 
thrust off from the pier and began to move over the 
waters; and what with my pleasure in this new move- 
ment and my surprise at our low position, and the 
appearance of the shores, and the growing bigness of 

1. A penny stonecast. The distance a quoit (penny-stone) might 
be thrown. 

2. Tod. Fox. 


WHAT BEFELL AT THE QUEEN'S FERRY 8S 

V 

the brig as we drew near to it, I could hardly under- 
stand what the captain said, and must have answered 
him at random. 

As soon as we were alongside (where I sat fairly 
gaping at the ship’s height, the strong humming of the 
tide against its sides, and the pleasant cries of the 
seamen at their work) Hoseason, declaring that he and 
I must be the first aboard, ordered a tackle to be sent 
down from the main-yard. In this I was whipped into 
the air and set down again on the deck, where the 
captain stood ready waiting for me, and instantly 
slipped back his arm under mine. There I stood some 
while, a little dizzy with the unsteadiness of all around 
me, perhaps a little afraid, and yet vastly pleased with 
these strange sights; the captain meanwhile pointing 
out the strangest, and telling me their names and uses. 

“But where is my uncle?” said I, suddenly. 

“Ay,” said Hoseason, with a sudden grimness, “that’s 
the point.” 

I felt I was lost. With all my strength, I plucked 
myself clear of him and ran to the bulwarks. Sure 
enough, there was the boat pulling for the town, with 
my uncle sitting in the stern. I gave -a piercing cry — 
“Help, help! Murder!” — so that both sides of the 
anchorage rang with it, and my uncle turned round 
where he was sitting, and showed me a face full of 
cruelty and terror. 

It was the last I saw. Already strong hands had 
been plucking me back from the ship’s side ; and now 
a thunder-bolt seemed to strike me ; I saw a great flash 
of fire, and fell senseless. 


CHAPTER VII 


I GO TO SEA IN THE BRIG “COVENANT” OF DYSART 

I came to myself in darkness, in great pain, bound 
hand and foot, and deafened by many unfamiliar noises. 
There sounded in my ears a roaring of water as of a 
huge mill-dam ; the thrashing of heavy sprays, the 
thundering of the sails, and the shrill cries of seamen. 
The whole world now heaved giddily up, and now 
rushed giddily downward; and so sick and hurt was I 
in body, and my mind so much confounded, that it took 
me a long while, chasing my thoughts up and down, 
and ever stunned again by a fresh stab of pain, to 
realize that I must be lying somewhere bound in the 
belly of that unlucky ship, and that the wind must have 
strengthened to a gale. With the clear perception of 
my plight, there fell upon me a blackness of despair, a 
horror of remorse at my own folly, and a passion of 
anger at my uncle, that once more bereft me of my 
senses'. 

When I returned again to life, the same uproar, the 
same confused and violent movements, shook and 
deafened me; and presently, to my other pains and 
distresses, there was added the sickness of an unused 
landsman on the sea. In that time of my adventurous 
youth, I suffered many hardships; but none that was so 
crushing to my mind and body, or lit by so few hopes, 
as these first hours on board the brig. 

I heard a gun fire, and supposed the storm had proved 
too strong for us, and we were firing signals of distress. 
The thought of deliverance, even by death in the deep 
sea, was welcome to me. Yet it was no such matter; 

84 


I GO TO SEA. IN THE BRIG “ COVENANT ” 85 

but (as I was afterwards told) a common habit of the 
captain’s, which I here set down to show that even the 
worst man may have his kindlier sides. We were then 
passing, it appeared, within some miles of Dysart, where 
the brig was built, and where old Mrs. Hoseason, the 
captain’s mother, had come- some years before to live; 
and whether outward or inward bound, the Covenant 
was never suffered to go by that place by day without 
a gun fired and colors shown. 

I had no measure of time; day and night were alike 
in that ill-smelling cavern of the ship’s bowels where 
I lay; and the misery of my situation drew out the 
hours to double. How long, therefore, I lay waiting 
to hear the ship split upon some rock, or to feel her 
reel head foremost into the depths of the sea, I have 
not the means of computation. But sleep at length 
stole from me the consciousness of sorrow. 

I was wakened by the light of a hand-lantern shining 
in my face. A small man of about thirty, with green 
eyes and a tangle of fair hair, stood looking down 
at me. 

“Well,” said he, “how goes it?” 

I answered by a sob; and my visitor then felt my 
pulse and temples, and set himself to wash and dress 
the wound upon my scalp. 

“Ay,” said he, “a sore dunt. 1 What, man? Cheer 
up ! The world’s no done ; you’ve made a bad start 
of it, but you’ll make a better. Have you had any 
meat ?” 

I said I could not look at it; and thereupon he 
gave me some brandy and water in a tin pannikin, 
and left me once more to myself. 

The next time he came to see me, I was lying 
betwixt sleep and waking, my eyes wide open in the 
darkness, the sickness quite departed, but succeeded by 

1. Pnvt. Stroke. 


KIDNAPPED 


86 

a horrid giddiness and swimming that was almost worse 
to bear. I ached, besides, in every limb, and the cords 
that bound me seemed to be of fire. The smell of the 
hole in which I lay seemed to have become a part of 
me; and during the long interval since his last visit, 
I had suffered tortures of fear, now from the scurrying 
of the ship’s rats that sometimes pattered on my very 
face, and now from the dismal imaginings that haunt 
the bed of fever. 

The glimmer of the lantern, as a trap opened, 
shone in like the heaven’s sunlight ; and though it only 
showed me the strong, dark beams of the ship that was 
my prison, I could have cried aloud for gladness. The 
man with the green eyes was the first to descend the 
ladder, and I noticed that he came somewhat un- 
steadily. He was followed by the captain. Neither 
said a word; but the first set to and examined me, and 
dressed my wmund as before, while Hoseason looked me 
in my face with an odd, black look. 

“Now, sir, you see for yourself,” said the first: “a 
high fever, no appetite, no light, no meat: you see 
for yourself what thfc.t means.” 

“I am no conjurer, Mr. Riach,” said the captain. 

“Give me leave, sir,” said Riach; “you’ve a good 
head upon your shoulders, and a good Scotch tongue 
to ask with ; but I will leave you no manner of excuse : 
I want that boy taken out of this hole and put in 
the forecastle.” 

“What ye may want, sir, is a matter of concern to 
nobody but yoursel’,” returned the captain ; “but I 
can tell ye that which is to be. Here he is: here he 
shall bide.” ' 

“Admitting that you have been paid in a propor- 
tion,” said the other, “I will crave leave humbly to 
say that I have not. Paid I am, and none too much, 
to be the second officer of this old tub ; and you ken 


I GO TO SEA IN THE BRIG “ COVENANT ” 87 

V? f 

very well if I do my best to earn it. But I was paid 
for nothing more.” 

“If ye could hold back your hand from the tin-pan, 
Mr. Riach, I would have no complaint to make of ye,” 
returned the skipper; “and instead of asking riddles, 
I make bold to say that ye would keep your breath 
to cool your porridge. We’ll be required on deck,” 
he added, in a sharper note, and set one foot upon the 
ladder. 

But Mr. Riach caught him by the sleeve. 

“Admitting that you have been paid to do a murder 
* ,” he began. 

Hoseason turned upon him with a flash. 

“What’s that?” he cried. “What kind of talk is 
that?” 

“It seems it is the talk that you can understand,” 
said Mr. Riach, looking him steadily in the face. 

“Mr. Riach, I have sailed with ye three cruises,” 
replied the captain. “In all that time, sir, ye should 
have learned to know me : I’m a stiff man, and a 
dour 1 man; but for what ye say the now — fy, fy! — 
it comes from a bad heart and a black conscience. If 
ye say the lad will die ” 

“Ay, will he !” said Mr. Riach. 

“Well, sir, is not that enough?” said Hoseason. 
“Flit 2 him where ye please !” 

Thereupon the captain ascended the ladder; and I, 
who had lain silent throughout this strange conversa- 
tion, beheld Mr. Riach turn after him and bow as low 
as to his knees in what was plainly a spirit of derision. 
Even in my then state of sickness, I perceived two 
things: that the mate was touched with liquor, as the 
captain hinted, and that (drunk or sober) he was like 
to prove a valuable friend. 

Five minutes afterwards my bonds were cut, I was 

1. Dour. Hard ; obstinate. 2. Flit. Transport. 


KIDNAPPED 


88 

Bril. 

hoisted on a man’s back, carried up to the forecastle, 
and laid in a bunk on some sea-blankets ; where the 
first thing that I did was to lose my senses. 

It was a blessed thing indeed to open my eyes again 
upon the daylight, and to find myself in the society 
of men. The forecastle was a roomy place enough, 
set all about with berths, in which the men of the 
watch below were seated smoking, or lying down 
asleep. The day being calm and the wind fair, the 
scuttle was open, and not only the good daylight, but 
from time to time (as the ship rolled) a dusty beam 
of sunlight shone in, and dazzled and delighted me. 
I had no sooner moved, moreover, than one of the 
men brought me a drink of something healing which 
Mr. Riach had prepared, and bade me lie still and I 
should soon be well again. There were no bones 
broken he explained : “A clour 1 on the head was 
naething. Man,” said he, “it was me that gave it ye!” 
h Here I lay for the space of many day^ a close 
prisoner, and not only got my health again, but came 
to know my companions. They were a rough lot 
indeed, as sailors mostly are; being men rooted out 
of all the kindly parts of life, and condemned to toss 
together on the rough seas, with masters no less cruel. 
There were some among them that had sailed with the 
pirates and seen things it. would be a shame even to 
speak of ; some were* men that had run from the king’s 
ships, and went with a halter round their necks, of 
which they made no secret ; and all, as the saying goes, 
were “at a word and a blow” with their best friends. 
Yet I had not been many days shut up with them 
before I began to be ashamed of my first judgment, 
when I had drawn away from them at the Ferry pier, 
as though they had been unclean beasts. No class of 
man is altogether bad ; but each has its own faults 
1. Clour. Blow. 


I GO TO SEA IN THE BRIG “ COVENANT ” 89 

and virtues ; and these shipmates of mine were no 
exception to the rule. Rough they were, sure enough ; 
and bad, I suppose ; but they had many virtues. They 
I were kind when it occurred to them, simple even beyond 
■the simplicity of a country lad like me, and had some 
glimmerings of honesty. 

I There was one man of maybe forty, that would sit 
on my berthside for hours, and tell me of his wife 
and child. He was a fisher that had lost his boat, and 
thus been driven to the deep-sea voyaging. Well, it 
is years ago now; but I have never forgotten him. 
His wife (who was “young by him,” as he often 
told me) waited in vain to see her man return; he 
would never again make the fire for her in the morning, 
nor yet keep the bairn 1 when she was sick. Indeed, 
many of these poor fellows (as the event proved) 
were upon their last cruise ; the deep seas and cannibal 
fish received them; and it is a thankless business to 
speak ill of the dead. 

Among other good deeds that they did, they re-V 
turned my money which had been shared among them ; " 
and though it was about a third short, I was very 
glad to get it, and hoped great good from it in the 
land I was going to. The ship was bound for the 
Carolinas; and you must not suppose that I was going 
to that place merely as an exile. The trade was even 
then much depressed; since that, and with the rebellion 
of the colonies and the formation of the United States, 
it has, of course, come to an end; hut in those days 
of my youth, white men were still sold into slavery on 
the plantations, and that was the destiny to which 
my wicked uncle had condemned me. 

The cabin-boy Ransome (from whom I had first 
heajd of these atrocities) came in at times from the 
round-house, where he berthed and served, now nurs- 

1. Bairn. Child. 


KIDNAPPED 


90 

n ... ^ 

ing a bruised limb in silent agony, now raving against 
the cruelty of Mr. Shuan. It made my heart bleed ; 
but the men had a great respect for the chief mate , 1 
who was, as they said, “the only seaman of the whole 
jing-bang, and none such a bad man when he was sober.” 
Indeed, I found there was a strange peculiarity about 
our two mates : that Mr. Riach was sullen, unkind, 
and harsh when he was sober, and Mr. Shuan would 
not hurt a fly except when he was drinking. I asked 
about the captain ; but I was told drink made no 
difference upon that man of iron. 

I did my best in the small time allowed me to make 
something like a man, or rather I should say some- 
thing like a boy, of the poor creature Ransome. But 
his mind was scarce truly human. He could remember 
nothing of the time before he came to sea; only that i 
his father had made clocks, and had a starling in the j 
parlor, which could whistle “The North Countrie;” all 
else had been blotted out in these years of hardship ! 
and cruelties. He had a strange notion of the dry 
land, picked up from sailors’ stories : that it was a ! 
place where lads were put to some kind of slavery 
called a trade, and where apprentices were continually 
lashed and clapped into foul prisons. In a town, he 
thought every second person a decoy, and every third ; 
house a place in which seamen would be drugged and 
murdered. To be sure, I would tell him how kindly I 
had myself been used upon that dry land he was so i 
much afraid of, and how well fed and carefully taught! 
both by my friends and my parents; and if he had! 
been recently hurt, he would weep bitterly and swear 
to run away; but if he was in his usual crackbrain 
humor or (still more) if he had had a glass of spirits 
in the round-house, he would deride the notion. 

It was Mr. Riach (Heaven forgive him!) who gave 
the boy drink; and it was, doubtless, kindly meant;! 


V • r, ' j 

I GO TO SEA IN THE BRIG “ COVENANT ” 91 

but besides that it was ruin to his health ; it was the 
pitifullest thing in life to see this unhappy, unfriended 
creature staggering, and dancing, and talking he 
knew not what. Some of the men laughed, but not 
all; others would grow as black as thunder (thinking, 
perhaps, of their own childhood or their own children) 
and bid him stop that nonsense, and think what he 
was doing. As for me, I felt ashamed to look at him, 
and the poor child still comes about me in my dreams. 

All this time, you should know, the Covenant was 
meeting continual head-winds and tumbling up and 
down against head-seas, so that the scuttle was almost 
constantly shut, and the forecastle lighted only by a 
swinging lantern on a beam. There was constant 
labor for all hands ; the sails had to be made and 
shortened every hour; the strain told on the men’s 
temper; there was a growl of quarreling all day long 
from berth to berth; and as I was never allowed to set 
my foot on deck, you can picture to yourselves how 
weary of my life I grew to be, and how impatient 
for a change. 

And a change I was to get, as you shall hear; but 
I must first tell of a conversation I had with Mr. Riach, 
which put a little heart in me to bear my troubles. 
Getting him in a favorable stage of drink (for 
indeed he never looked near me when he was sober) I 
pledged him to secrecy, and told him my whole story. 

He declared it was like a ballad ; that he would 
do his best to help me ; that I should have paper, 
pen, and ink, and write one line to Mr. Campbell and 
another to Mr. Rankeillor ; and that if I had told 
the truth, ten to one he would be able (with their 
help) to pull me through and set me in my rights. 

“And in the meantime,” says he, “keep your heart 
up. You’re not the only one, I’ll tell you that. 
There’s many a man hoeing tobacco over-seas that 


KIDNAPPED 


92 


S k 


should be mounting his horse at his own door at home;, 
many and many ! And life is all a variorum , 1 at the 
best. Look at me: I’m a laird’s son and more than 
half a doctor, and here I am, man-jack to Hoseason !” 

I thought it would be civil to ask him for his story.’ 

He whistled loud. 

“Never had one,” said he. “I liked fun, that’s all.’ 
And he skipped out of the forecastle. 


1. Variorum. Here, a mixture of various elements ; a hodge-j 
podge. 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE ROUND-HOUSE 

One night, about twelve o’clock, a man of Mr. 
Riach’s watch (which was on deck) came down for 
his jacket; and instantly there began to go a whisper 
about the forecastle that “Shuan had done for him 
at last.” There was no need of a name; we all knew 
who was meant; but we had scarce time to get the 
idea rightly in our heads, far less to speak of it, 
when the scuttle was again flung open, and Captain 
Hoseason came down the ladder. He looked sharply 
round the bunks in the tossing light of the lantern ; 
and then, walking straight up to me, he addressed 
me, to my surprise, in tones of kindness. 

“My man,” said he, “we want ye to serve in the 
round-house. You and Ransome are to change berths. 
Run away aft with' ye.” 

Even as he spoke, two seamen appeared in the 
scuttle, carrying Ransome in their arms ; and the 
ship at that moment giving a great sheer into the 
sea, and the lantern swinging, the light fell direct on 
the boy’s face. It was as white as wax, and had a look 
upon it like a dreadful smile. The blood in me ran 
cold, and I drew in my breath as if I had been 
struck. 

“Run away aft ; run away aft with ye !” cried 
Hoseason. 

And at that I brushed by the sailors and the boy 
(who neither spoke nor moved) and ran up the- ladder 
on deck. 

The brig w,as sheering swiftly and giddily through 
93 


94 


KIDNAPPED 


a long cresting swell. She was on the starboard tack, ' 
and on the left hand, under the arched foot of the : 
foresail, I could see the sunset still quite bright. This, jj 
at such an hour of the night, surprised me greatly; ] 
but I was too ignorant to draw the true conclusion | 
— that we were going north-about round Scotland, and \ 
were now on the high sea between the Orkney and the | 
Shetland Islands, having avoided the dangerous cur- : 
rents of the Pentland Firth. For my part, who had 
been so long shut in the dark and knew nothing of 
headwinds, I thought we might be half-way or more 
across the Atlantic. And indeed (beyond that I won- 
dered a little at the lateness of the sunset light) I 
gave no heed to it, and pushed on across the decks, 
running between the seas, catching at ropes, and only 
saved from going overboard by one of the hands on 
deck, who had been always kind to me. 

The round-house, for which I was bound and where t 
I was now to sleep and serve, stood some six feet above ] 
the decks, and considering the size of the brig, was of j 
good dimensions. Inside were a fixed table and bench, 
and two berths, one for the captain and the other for j 
the two mates, turn and turn about. It was all fitted 
with lockers from top to bottom, so as to stow away \ 
the officers’ belongings and a part of the ship’s stores ; ! 
there was a second store-room underneath, which you 
entered by a hatchway in the middle of the deck; 
indeed, all the best of the meat and drink and the 
whole of the powder were collected in this place; and ; 
all the firearms, except the two pieces of brass ordnance, 
were set in a rack in the aftermost wall of the round- 
house. The most of the cutlasses were in another 
place. 

A small window with a shutter on each side, and 
a sky-light in the roof, gave it light by day; and 
after dark, there was a lamp always burning. It was 


THE ROUND-HOUSE 


95 

burning when I entered, not brightly, but enough to 
show Mr. Shuan sitting at the table, with the brandy 
bottle and a tin pannikin in front of him. He was 
a tall man, strongly made and very black ; and he 
stared before him on the table like one stupid. 

He took no notice of my coming in ; nor did he 
move when the captain followed and leant on the berth 
beside me, looking darkly at the mate. I stood in great 
fear of Hoseason, and had my reasons for it ; but 
something told me I need not be afraid of him just 
then; and I whispered in his ear, “How is he?” He 
shook his head like one that does not know and does 
not wish to think, and his face was very stern. 

Presently Mr. Riach came in. He gave the captain 
a glance that meant the boy was dead as plain as 
speaking, and took his place like the rest of us; so 
that we all three stood without a word, staring down 
at Mr. Shuan, and Mr. Shuan (on his side) sat without 
a word, looking hard upon the table. 

All of a sudden he put out his hand to take the 
bottle; and at that Mr. Riach started forward and 
caught it away from him, rather by surprise than 
violence, crying out, with an oath, that there had been 
too much of this work altogether, and that a judg- 
ment would fall upon the ship. And as he spoke (the 
weather sliding-doors standing open) he tossed the 
bottle into the sea. 

Mr. Shuan was oil his feet in a trice; he still 
looked dazed, but he meant murder, ay, and w T ould 
have done it, for the second time that night, had not 
the captain stepped in between him and his victim. 

“Sit down !” roars the captain. “Ye sot and swine, 
do ve know what ve’ve done? Ye’ve murdered the 
boy !” 

Mr. Shuan seemed to understand; for he sat down 
again and put up his hand to his brow. 


KIDNAPPED 


96 

“Well,” he said, “he brought me a dirty pannikin!” 

At that word, the captain and I and Mr. Riach all 
looked at each other for a second wit h a kind of 
frightened look; and then Hoseason walked up to his 
chief officer, took him by the shoulder, led him across 
to his bunk, and bade him lie down and go to sleep, 
as you might speak to a bad child. The murderer i 
cried a little, but he took off his sea-boots and obeyed, j 

“Ah!” cried Mr. Riach, with a dreadful voice, “ye I 
should have interfered long syne . 1 It’s too late now.” 

“Mr. Riach,” said the captain, “this night’s work 
must never be kennt in Dysart. The boy went over- 
board, sir ; that’s what' the story is ; and I would 
give five pounds out of my pocket it was true !” He 
turned to the table. “What made }^e throw the good 
bottle away?” he added. “There was nae sense in 
that, sir. Here, David, draw r me another. They’re 
in the bottom locker;” and he tossed me a key. “Ye’ll 
need a glass yourself, sir,” he added, to Riach. “Yon 
was an ugly thing to see.” 

So the pair sat down and hob-a-nobbed ; and while -j 
they did so, the murderer, who had been lying and whim- 
pering in his berth, raised himself upon his elbow and 
looked at them and at me. 

That was the first night of my new duties ; and in 
the course of the next day I had got well into the run 
of them. I had to serve at the meals, which the cap- 
tain took at regular hours, sitting down with the officer 
who was off duty; all the day through I would be 
running with a dram to one or other of my three 
masters ; and at night I slept on a blanket thrown on the 
deck boards at the aftermost end of the round-house, and 
right in the draught of the two doors. It was a hard 
and a cold bed; nor was I suffered to sleep without 
interruption; for some one would be always coming 
1. Syne. Since, ago. 


THE R0UND-H0U8E 


97 

in from deck to get a dram, and when a fresh watch 
was to be set, two and sometimes all .three would sit 
down and brew a bowl together. How they kept their 
health, I know not, any more than how I kept my 
own. 

And yet in other ways it was an easy service. There 
was no cloth to lay; the meals were either of oatmeal 
porridge or salt junk, except twice a week, when there 
was duff : 1 and though I was clumsy enough and (not 
being firm on my sea-legs) sometimes fell with what I 
was bringing them, both Mr. Riach and the captain 
were singularly patient. I could not but fancy they 
were making up lee-way with their consciences, and 
that they would scarce have been so good with me, if 
they had not been worse with Ransome. 

As for Mr. Shuan, the drink, or his crime, or the 
two together, had certainly troubled his mind. I 
cannot say I ever saw him in his proper wits. He 
never grew used to my being there, stared at me con- 
tinually (sometimes, I could have thought, with terror) 
and more than once drew back from my hand wheh I 
was serving him. I was pretty sure from the first 
that he had no clear mind of what he had done, and 
on my second day in the round-house I had the proof 
of it. We were alone, and he had been staring at me 
a long time, when, all at once, up he got, as pale as 
death, and came close up to me, to my great terror. 
But I had no cause to be afraid of him. 

44 You were not here before?” he asked. 

44 No, sir,” said I. 

“There w^as another boy?” he asked again; and when 
I had answered him, 44 Ah!” says he, 44 I thought that,” 
and went and sat down, without another word, except 
to call for brandy. 

You may think it strange, but for all the horror I 

1. Duff. A flour pudding boiled in a bag. 


KIDNAPPED 


98 

A 0 
fj 

had, I was still sorry for him. He was a married man, 
with a wife in Leith ; but whether or no he had a 
family, I have now forgotten; I hope not. 

Altogether it w T as no very hard life for the time it 
lasted, which (as you are to hear) was not long. I 
was as well fed as the best of them; even their pickles, i 
which were the great dainty, I was allowed my share 
of ; and had I liked, I might have been drunk from 
morning to night,, like Mr. Shuan. I had company, 
too, and good company of its sort. Mr. Riach, who J 
had been to the college, spoke to me like a friend 

when he was not sulking, and told me many curious ) 

things, and some that were informing; and even the • 
captain, though he kept me at the stick’s end the most 
part of the time, would sometimes unbuckle a bit, and ’ 
tell me of the fine countries he had visited. 

The shadow- of poor Ransome, to be sure, lay on 
all four of us, and on me and Mr. Shuan, in particular, 
most heavily. And then I had another trouble of my 
own. Here I was, doing dirty w^ork for three men | 

that I looked dowrn upon, and one of them, at least, >. 

should have hung upon a gallows; that was for the 
present; and as for the future, I could only see myself i 
slaving alongside of negroes in the tobacco fields. Mr. 
Riach, perhaps from caution, would never suffer me 
to say another word about my story ; the captain, 
whom I tried to approach, rebuffed me like a dog and i 
would not hear a w^ord ; and as the days came and went, 
my heart sank lower and low^er, till I was' even glad, of 
the w r ork, which kept me from thinking. 


CHAPTER IX 


THE MAN WITH THE BEET OF GOLD 

More than a week went by, in which the ill-luck 
that had hitherto pursued the Covenant upon this 
voyage grew yet more strongly marked. Some days 
she made a little way ; others, she was driven actually 
back. At last we were beaten so far to the south that 
we tossed and tacked to and fro the whole of the ninth 
day, within sight of Cape Wrath and the wild, rocky 
coast on either hand of it. There followed on that 
a council of the officers, and some decision which I did 
not rightly understand, seeing only the result: that 
we had made a fair wind of a foul one and were running 
south. 

The tenth afternoon, there was a falling swell and 
a thick, wet, white fog that hid one end of the brig 
from the other. All afternoon, when I went on deck, 
I saw men and officers listening hard over the bulwarks 
— “for breakers,” they said; and though I did not so 
much as understand the word, I felt danger in the air 
and was excited. 

Maybe about ten at night, I was serving Mr. Riach 
and the captain at their supper, when the ship struck 
something with a great sound, and we heard voices 
singing out. My two masters leaped to their feet. 

“She’s struck,” said Mr. Riach. 

“No, sir,” -said the captain. “We’ve only ran a boat 
down.” 

And they hurried out. 

The captain was in the right of it. We had run 
99 

£ 0 * ' 


KIDNAPPED 


100 

m 

down a boat in the fog, and she had parted in the midst 
and gone to the bottom with all her crew, but one. 

This man (as I heard afterwards) had been sitting in 

the stern as a passenger, while the rest were on the 
benches rowing. At the moment of the blow r , the 

stern had been thrown into the air, and the man 

(having his hands free, and for all he was encumbered 
with a frieze overcoat that came below his knees) had 
leaped up and caught hold of the brig’s bowsprit. It 
showed he had luck and much agilit j and unusual 
strength, that he- should have thus saved himself from 
such a pass. And yet, when the captain brought him 
into the round-house, and I set eyes on him for the 
first time, he looked as cool as I did. 

He was smallish in stature, but well set and as nimble 
as a goat; his face was of a good open expression, 
but sunburnt very dark, and heavily freckled and pitted ; 
with the smallpox; his eyes were unusually light and 
had a kind of dancing madness in them, that was both 
engaging and alarming ; and when he took off his 
great-coat, he laid a pair of fine, silver-mounted pistols 
on the table, and I saw that he was belted with a great 
sword. His manners, besides, were elegant, and he 
pledged the captain handsomely. Altogether I thought 
of him, at the first sight, that here was a man I would 
rather call my friend than m3" enemy. 

The captain, too, was taking his observations, but : 
rather of the man’s clothes Than his person. And to 
be sure, as soon as he had taken off the great-coat, 
he showed forth mighty fine for the round-house of a 
merchant brig: having a hat with feathers, a red waist- 
coat, breeches of black plush, and a blue coat with silver 
buttons and handsome silver lace : costly clothes, though 
somewhat spoiled with the fog and being slept in. 

“I’m vexed, sir, about the boat,” says the captain. 

“There are some pretty jnen gone to the bottom,” 


THE MAN WITH THE BELT OF GOLD 101 

l 

said the stranger, “that I would rather see on the dry 
land again than half a score of boats.” 

“Friends of yours?” said Hoseason. 

“You have none such friends in your country,” was 
the reply. “They would have died for me like dogs.” 

“Well, sir,” said the captain, still watching him,, 
“there are more men in the world than boats to put 
them in.” 

“And that’s true, too,” cried the other ; “and ye 
seem to be a gentleman of great penetration.” 

“I have been in France, sir,” says the captain; so> 
that it was plain he meant more by the words than 
showed upon the face of them. 

“Well, sir,” says the other, “and so has many a 
pretty man, for the matter of that.” 

“No doubt, sir,” says the captain; “and fine coats.” 

“Oho!” says the stranger, “is that how the wind 
sets?” And he laid his hand quickly on his pistols. 

“Don’t be hasty,” said the captain. “Don’t do a mis- 
chief before ye see the need for it. Ye’ve a French 
soldier’s coat upon your back and a Scotch tongue 
in your head, to be sure; but so has many an honest 
fellow in these days, and I daresay none the worse 
of it.” 

“So?” said the gentleman in the fine coat: “Are ye 
of the honest party?” (meaning, Was he a Jacobite ? 1 
for each side, in these sort of civil broils, takes the 
name of honesty for its own). 

“Why, sir,” replied the captain, “I am a true-blue 
Protestant, and I thank God for it.” (It was the first 
word of any religion I had ever heard from him, but 
I learnt afterwards he was a great church-goer while 
on shore.) “But, for all that,” says he, “I can be sorry 
to see another man with his back to the wall.” 

“Can ye so, indeed?” asks the Jacobite. “Well, 

1. Jacobite. See Historical No y te, Introduction, page 27. 


102 KIDNAPPED 

CP 

sir, to be quite plain with ye, I am one of those honest 
gentlemen that were in trouble about the years forty- 
five and six ; 1 and (to be still quite plain with ye) if I 
get into the hands of any of the Ted-coated gentry, 
it’s like it would go hard with me. Now, sir, I was 
for France; and there was a French ship cruising here 
to pick me up; but she gave us the go-by in the fog 
— as I wish from the heart that ye had done yoursel’ ! 
And the best that I can say is this: If ye cdn set me 
ashore where I was going, I have that upon me will 
reward you highly for your trouble.” 

“In France?” says the captain. “No, sir; that I 
cannot do. But where ye come from — we might talk 
of that.” 

And then, unhappily, he observed me standing in 
m} r corner, and packed me off to the galley to get 
supper for the gentleman. I lost no time, I promise 
you ; and when I came back into the round-house, I 
found the gentleman had taken a money-belt from about 
his waist, and poured out a guinea or two upon the 
table. The captain was looking at the guineas, and 
then at the belt, and then at the gentleman’s face; 
and I thought he seemed excited. 

.“Half of it,” he cried, “and I’m your man!” 

The other swept back the guineas into the belt, and 
put it on again under his waistcoat. “I have told ye, 
sir,” said he, “that not one doit 2 of it belongs to me. 
It belongs to my chieftain” — and here he touched his 
hat — “and while I would be but a silly messenger to 
grudge some of it that the rest might come safe, I 
should show myself a hound indeed if I bought my 
own carcass any too dear. Thirty guineas on the sea- 

1. The years forty-five and six. See Historical Note, Introduction, 
page 27. 

2. Doit. A small copper coin worth one-twentieth of an English 
penny. 


THE MAN WITH THE BELT OF GOLD 103 

G* 

side, or sixty if ye set me on the Linnhe Loch . 1 Take 
it, if ye will ; if not, ye can do your worst / 5 

“Ay , 55 said Hoseason. “And if I give ye over to 
the soldiers ? 55 

“Ye would make a fool’s bargain , 55 said the other. 
“My chief, let me tell you, sir, is forfeited, like every 
honest man in Scotland. His estate is in the hands 
of the man they call King George; and it is his officers 
that collect the rents, or try to collect them. But 
for the honor of Scotland, the poor tenant bodies take 
a thought upon their chief lying in exile ; and this 
money is a part of that very rent for which King 
George is looking. Now, sir, ye seem to me to be a 
man that understands things: bring this money within 
the reach of Government, and how much of it’ll come 
to you ? 55 

“Little enough, to be sure,” said Hoseason; and 
then, “if they knew,” he added drily. “But I think, 
if I was to try, that I could hold my tongue about it.” 

“Ah, but I’ll begowk 2 ye there !” cried the gentle- 
man. “Play me false, and I’ll play you cunning. If 
a hand’s laid upon me, they shall ken w T hat money 
it is.” 

“Well,” returned the captain, “what must be, must. 
Sixty guineas, and done. Here’s my hand upon it.” 

“And here’s mine,” said the other. 

And thereupon the captain went out (rather hur- 
riedly, I thought), and left me alone in the round- 
house with the stranger. 

At that period (so soon after the forty-five) there 
were many exiled gentlemen coming back at the peril 
of their lives, either to see their friends or to collect 
a little money; and as for the Highland chiefs that. 


1. Linnhe loch. Loch ordinarily means “lake.” Loch Linnhe is 
an arm of the sea between Appin and Morven. See map. 

2. Begoivlc. Trick or fool. 


KIDNAPPED 


104 

had been forfeited , 1 it was a common matter of talk 
how their tenants would stint themselves to send them 
money, and their clansmen outface the soldiery to get 
it in, and run the gauntlet of our great navy to carry 
it across. All this I had, of course, heard tell of ; and 
now I had a man under my eyes whose life was forfeit on 
all these counts and upon one more; for he was not 
orily a rebel and a smuggler of rents, but had taken 
service with King Louis of France . 2 And as if all 
this were not enough, he had a belt full of golden 
guineas round his loins. Whatever my opinions, I could 
not look on such a man without a lively interest. 

“And so you’re a Jacobite?” said I, as I set meat 
before him. 

“Ay,” said he, beginning to eat. “And you by 
your long face, should be a Whig ?” 3 

“Betwixt and between,” said I, not to annoy him ; 
for indeed I was as good a Whig as Mr. Campbell could 
make me. 

“And that’s naething,” said he. “But I’m saying, 
Mr. Betwixt-and-Between,” he added, “this bottle of 
yours is dry ; and it’s hard if I’m to pay sixty guineas 
and be grudged a dram upon the back of it.” 

“I’ll go and ask for the key,” said I and stepped 
on deck. 

The fog was as close as ever, but the swell almost 
down. They had laid the brig to, not knowing pre- 
cisely where they were, and the wind (what little there 
was of it) not serving well for their true course. Some 
of the hands were still hearkening for breakers ; but 

1. Forfeited. That is, whose estates had been forfeited. 

2. King Louis of France. Louis XV (1715-1774). From 1741 to 
174S France and England were on opposite sides in the war of the 
Austrian Succession. 

3. Whig. Here, an adherent of George II, who was of the Han- 
overian line. 


THE MAN WITH THE BELT OF GOLD 105 

the captain and the two officers were in the waist with 
their heads together. It struck me, I don’t know why, 
that they were after no good: and the first word I 
heard, as I drew softly near, more than confirmed me. 

It was Mr. Riach crying out as if upon a sudden 
thought : 

“Couldn’t we wile him out of the round-house ?” 

“He’s better where* he is,” returned' Hoseason ; “he 
hasn’t room to use his sword.” 

“Well, that’s true,” said Riach; “but he’s hard to 
come at.” 

“Hut!” said Hoseason. “We can get the man in 
talk, one upon each side, and pin him by the two arms ; 
or if that’ll not hold, sir, w.e can make a run by both 
the doors and get him under hand before he has time 
to draw.” 

At this hearing I was seized with both fear and 
anger at these treacherous, greedy, bloody men that 
I sailed with. My first mind was to run awa}^; my 
second was bolder. 

“Captain,” said I, “the gentleman is seeking a dram, 
and the bottle’s out. Will you give me the key?” 

They all started and turned about. 

“Why, here’s our chance to get the firearms !” Riach 
cried; and then to me: “Hark ye, David,” he said, 
“do ye ken where the pistols are?” 

“Ay, ay,” put in Hoseason. “David kens; David’s 
a good lad. Ye see, David my man, yon wild Hieland- 
man is a danger to the ship, besides being a rank foe 
to King George, God bless him !” 

I had never been so be-Davied since I came on board ; 
but I said yes, as if all I heard were quite natural. 

“The trouble is,” resumed the captain, “that all our 
fire-locks, great and little, are in the round-house 
under this man’s nose; likewise the powder. Now, if 


KIDNAPPED 


106 

}C 

I, or one of the officers, was to go in and take them, 
he would fall to thinking. But a lad like you, David, 
might snap ilp a horn and a pistol or two without re- 
mark. And if ye can do it cleverly, I’ll bear it in 
mind when it’ll be good for you to have friends; and 
that’s when we come to Carolina.” 

Here Mr. Riach whispered him a little. 

“Very right, sir,” said the captain ; and then to 
myself : “And see here, David, yon man has a beltful 
of gold, and I give you my word that you shall have 
your fingers in it.” 

I told him I would do as he wished, though indeed 
I had scarce breath to speak with ; and upon that he 
gave me the key of the spirit locker, and I began to go 
slowly back to the round-house. What was I to do? 
They were dogs and thieves; they had stolen me from 
my own country ; they had killed poor Ransome ; and 
was I to hold the candle to another murder? But then, 
upon the other hand, there was the fear of death very 
plain before me; for what could a boy and a man, if 
they were as brave as lions, against a whole ship’s 
company ? 

I was still arguing it back and forth, and getting no 
great clearness, when I came into the round-house and 
saw the Jacobite eating his supper under the lamp ; 
and at that my mind was made up all in a moment. 
I have no credit by it; it was by no choice of mine, but 
as if by compulsion, that I walked right up to the table 
and put my hand on his shoulder. 

“Do ye want to be killed?” said I. 

He sprang to his feet and looked a question at me 
as clear as if he had spoken. 

“O!” cried I, “they’re all murderers here; it’s a ship 
full of them! They’ve murdered a boy already. Now 
it’s you.” 

“Ay, ay,” said he; “but they haven’t got me yet.” 


THE MAN WITH THE BELT OF GOLD 107 

• 

And then looking at me curiously. “Will ye stand 
with me?” 

“That will I !” said I. “I’m no thief, nor yet mur- 
derer. I’ll stand by you.” 

“Why, then,” said he, “what’s your name?” 

“David Balfour,” said I; and then thinking that a 
man with so fine a coat must like fine people, I added 
for the first time “of Shaws.” 

It never occurred to him to doubt me, for a High- 
lander is used to see great gentlefolk in great poverty; 
but as he had no estate of his own, my words nettled 
a very childish vanity he had. 

“My name is Stewart,” he said, drawing himself up. 
“Alan Breck, they call me. A king’s name 1 is good 
enough for me, though I bear it plain and have the 
name of no farm-midden 2 to clap to the hind-end 
of it.” 

And having administered this rebuke, as though it 
were something of a chief importance, he turned to 
examine our defences. 

The round-house was built very strong, to support 
the breachings of the seas. Of its five apertures, only 
the skylight and the two doors were large enough for 
the passage of a man. The doors, besides, could be 
drawn close : they were of stout oak, and ran in 
grooves, and were fitted with hooks to keep them either 
shut or open, as the need arose. The one that was 
already shut, I secured in this fashion; but when I 
was proceeding to slide to the other, Alan stopped me. 

“David,” said he — “for I cannae bring to mind the 
name of your landed estate, and so will make so bold 
as call you David — that door, being open, is the best, 
part of my defences.” 

1. A Icing’s name. Four of the kings of England, including 
.Tames II, belonged to the Scottish house of Stewart. See Historical 
Note. Introduction, page 27. 

2. Farm-midden. A heap of refuse on the farm. 


KIDNAPPED 


108 

72 

“It would be better shut,” says I. 

“Not so, David,” says be. “Ye see, I have but one 
face; but so long as that door is open and my face 
to it, the best part of my enemies will be in front of 
me, where I would aye wish to find them.” 

Then he gave me from the rack a cutlass (of which 
there were a few besides the firearms), choosing it with 
great care, shaking his head and saying he had never 
in all his life seen poorer weapons; and next he set 
me down to the table with a powder-horn, a bag of 
bullets, and all the pistols, which he bade me charge. 

“And that will be better work, let me tell you,” said 
he, “for a gentleman of decent birth, than scraping 
plates and raxing 1 drams to a wheen tarry sailors.” 

Thereupon he stood up in the midst wdth his face 
to the door, and drawing his great sword, made trial 
of the room he had to wield it in. 

“I must stick to the point,” he said, shaking his 
head; “and that’s a pity, too. It doesn’t set my 
genius, which is all for the upper guard. And now,” 
said he, “do you keep on charging the pistols, and 
give heed to me.” 

I told him I would listen closely. My chest was 
tight, my mouth dry, the light dark to my eyes; the 
thought of the numbers that were soon to leap in 
upon us kept my heart in a flutter; and the sea, which 
I heard washing round the brig, and where I thought 
my dead body w r ould be cast ere morning, ran in my 
mind strangely. 

“First of all,” said he, “how many are against us?” 

I reckoned them up ; and such w r as the hurry of my 
mind, I had to cast the numbers twice. “Fifteen,” 
said I. 

Alan whistled. “Well,” said he, “that can’t be 
cured. And nov r follow me. It is my part to keep this 

1. Raving. Rc-acbing, i. e., serving. 


THE MAN WITH THE BELT OF GOLD 109 

door, where I look for the main battle. In that, ye 
have no hand. And mind and dinnae fire to tlrrs side 
unless they get me down; for I would rather have 
ten foes in front of me than one friend like you 
cracking pistols at my back.” 

I told him, indeed I w^as no great shot. 

“And that’s very bravely said,” he cried, in a great 
admiration of my candor. “There’s many a pretty 
gentleman that w^ouldnae dare to say it.” 

“But then, sir,” said I, “there is the door behind you, 
wdiich they may, perhaps, break in.” r 

“Ay,” said he, “and that is a part of your work. 
No sooner the pistols charged, than ye must climb up 
into yon bed where ye’re handy at the wdndow ; and 
if they lift a hand against the door, ye’re to shoot. 
But that’s not all. Let’s make a bit of a soldier of ye, 
David. What else have ye to guard?” 

“There’s the skylight,” said I. “But indeed, Mr. 
Stewart, I would need to have eyes upon both sides 
to keep the two of them; for when my face is at the 
one, my back is to the other.” 

“And that’s very true,” said Alan. “But have ye 
no ears to your head?” 

“To be sure!” cried I. “I must hear the bursting 
of the glass !” 

“Ye have some rudiments of sense,” said Alan, grimly. 


CHAPTER X 


THE SIEGE OF THE ROUND-HOUSE 

But now our time of truce was come to an end. 
Those on deck had waited for my coming till they 
grew impatient; and scarce had Alan spoken, when 
the captain showed face in the open door. 

‘‘Stand !” cried Alan, and pointed his sword at him. 

The captain stood, indeed; but he neither winced 
nor drew back a foot. 

“A naked sword?” says he. “This is a strange 
return for hospitality.” 

“Do you see me?” said Alan. “I am come of kings; 
I bear a king’s name. My badge is the oak. Do ye 
see my sword ? It has slashed the heads off mair 
whigamores than you have toes upon your feet. Call 
up your vermin to your back, sir, and fall on! The 
sooner the clash begins, the sooner ye’ll taste this 
steel throughout your vitals.” 

The captain said nothing to Alan, but he looked 
over at me with an ugly look. “David,” said he, “I’ll 
mind this ;” and the sound of his voice went through 
me with a jar. 

Next moment he was gone. 

“And now,” said Alan, “let your hand keep your 
head, for the grip is coming.” 

Alan drew a dirk, which he held in his left hand in 
case they should run in under his sword. I, on my 
part, clambered up into the berth with an armful of 
pistols and something of a heavy heart, and set open 
the window where I was to watch. It was a small part 

110 


THE SIEGE OF THE ROUND-HOUSE 111 

of the deck that I could overlook, but enough for our 
purpose. The sea had gone down, and the wind was 
steady and kept the sails quiet ; so that there was a 
great stillness in the ship, in which I made sure I heard 
the sound of muttering voices. A little after, and there 
came a clash of steel upon the deck, by which I knew 
they were dealing out the cutlasses and one had been 
let fall ; and after that silence again. 

I do not know if I was what you call afraid; but 
my heart beat like a bird’s, both quick and little; and 
there was a dimness came before my eyes which I con- 
tinually rubbed away, and which continually returned. 
As for hope, I had none; but only a darkness of 
despair and a sort of anger against all the world that 
made me long to sell my life; as dear as I w T as able. I 
tried to pray, I remember, but that same hurry of my 
mind, like a man running, would not suffer me to 
think upon the words; and my chief wish was to have 
the thing begin and be done with it. 

It came all of a sudden when it did, with a rush of 
feet and a roar, and then a shout from Alan, and a 
sound of blows and some one crying out as if hurt. 
I looked back over my shoulder, and saw Mr. ShuaiL 
in the doorway, crossing blades with Alan. 

“That’s him that killed the boy !” I cried 

“Look to your window !” said Alan ; and as I turned 
back to my place, I saw him pass his sword through the 
mate’s body. 

It was none too soon for me to look to my own part; 
for my head was scarce back at the window before five 
men, carrying a spare yard for a battering-ram, ran 
past me and took post to drive the door in. I had never 
fired with a pistol in my life, and not often with a 
gun; far less against a fellow-creature. But it was 
now or never; and just as they swang the yard, I cried 
out, “Take that!” and shot into their midst. 


KIDNAPPED 


112 

I must have hit one of them, for he sang out and 
gave back a step, and the rest stopped as if a little 
disconcerted. Before they had time to recover, I sent 
another ball over their heads; and at my third shot 
(which went as wide as the second) the whole party 
threw down the yard and ran for it. 

Then I looked around again into the deck-house. 
The whole place was full of the smoke of my own 
firing, just as my ears seemed to be burst with the 
noise of the shots. But there was Alan, standing as 
before; only now his sword was running blood to the 
hilt, and himself so swelled with triumph and fallen 
into so fine an attitude, that he looked to be invincible. 
Right before him on the floor was Mr. Shuan, on his 
hands and knees ; the blood was pouring from his 
mouth, and he was sinking slowly lower, with a terrible, 
white face; and just as I looked, some of those from 
behind caught hold of him by the heels and dragged 
him bodily out of the round-house. I believe he died 
as they were doing it. 

“There’s one of your Whigs for ye !” cried Alan ; 
and then turning to me, he asked if I had done much 
execution. 

I told him I had winged one, and thought it was the 
captain. 

“And I’ve settled two,” says he. “No, there’s not 
enough blo^d yet; they’ll be back again. To your 
watch, David. This w r as but a dram before meat.” 

I settled back to my place, recharging the three 
pistols I had fired, and keeping watch with both eye 
and ear. 

Our enemies were disputing not far off upon the 
deck, and that so loudly that I could hear a w^ord or 
two above the washing of the seas. 

“It was Shuan bauchled 1 it,” I heard one say. 

1. Bauchled. Bungled. 


THE SIEGE OF THE ROUND-HOUSE 113 

And another answered him with a “Wheesht, man! 
He’s paid the piper.” 

After that the voices fell again into the same mut- 
tering as before. Only now, one person spoke most of 
the time, as though laying down a plan, and first one 
and then another answered him briefly, like men taking 
orders. By this, I made sure they were coming on 
again, and told Alan. 

“It’s what we have to pray for,” said he. “Unless 
we can give them a good distaste of us,- and done with 
it, there’ll be nae sleep for either you or me. But this 
time, mind, they’ll be in earnest.” 

By this my pistols were ready, and there was nothing 
to do but listen and wait. While the brush lasted, I 
had not the time to think if I was frightened; but 
now, when all was still again, my mind ran upon 
nothing else. The thought of the sharp swords and 
the cold steel was strong in me ; and presently, when 
I began to hear stealthy steps and a brushing of men’s 
clothes against the round-house wall, and knew they 
were taking their places in the dark, I could have found 
it in my mind to cry out aloud. 

All this was upon Alan’s side; and I had begun to 
think my share of the fight was at an end, when I 
heard some one drop softly on the roof above me. 

Then there came a single call on the sea-pipe, and 
that was the signal. A knot of them made one rush 
of it, cutlass in hand, against the door ; and at the 
same moment, the glass of the skylight was dashed in 
a thousand pieces, and a man leaped through and 
landed on the floor. Before he got his feet, I had 
clapped a pistol to his bacli, and might have shot him, 
too; only at the touch of him (and him alive) my 
whole flesh misgave me, and I could no more pull the 
trigger than I cpuld have flown. 

He had dropped his cutlass as he jumped, and when 


KIDNAPPED 


11 i 

7 o 

he felt the pistol, whipped straight round and laid hold 
of me, roaring out an oath ; and at that either my 
courage came again, or I grew so much afraid as came 
to the same thing; for I gave a shriek and shot him 
in the midst of the body. He gave the most horrible, 
ugly groan and fell to the floor. The foot of a second 
fellow, whose legs were dangling through the skylight, 
struck me at the same time upon the head ; and at 
that I snatched another pistol and shot this one through 
the thigh, so that he slipped through and tumbled in 
a lump on his companion’s body. There was no talk 
.of missing, any more than there was time to aim ; I 
clapped the muzzle to the very place and fired. 

I might have stood and stared at them for long, 
but I heard Alan shout as if for help, and that brought 
me to my senses. 

He had kept the door so long; but one of the sea- 
men, while he was engaged with others, had run in 
under his guard and caught him about the body. Alan 
was dirking him with his left hand, but the fellow clung 
like a leech. Another had broken in and had his cut- 
lass raised. The door w r as thronged w r ith their faces. 
I thought we were lost, and catching up my cutlass, 
fell on them in flank. 

But I had not time to be of help. The wrestler 
dropped at last ; and Alan, leaping back to get his 
distance, ran upon the others like a bull, roaring as 
he went. They broke before him like water, turning, 
and running, and falling one against another in their 
haste. The sword in his hands flashed like quicksilver 
into the huddle of our fleeing enemies ; and at every 
flash there came the scream of a man hurt. I was still 
thinking w T e w r ere lost, wdien lo! they were all gone, 
and Alan was driving them along the deck as a sheep- 
dog chases sheep. 

Yet he w r as no sooner out than he was back again, 


THE SIEGE OF THE ROUND-HOUSE 115 

being as cautious as he was brave; and meanwhile the 
seamen continued running and crying out as if he 
was still behind them ; and we heard them tumble one 
upon another into the forecastle, and clap-to the hatch 
upon the top. 

The round-house was like a shambles ; three were 
dead inside, another lay in his death agony across the 
threshold; and there were Alan and I victorious and 
unhurt. 

He came up to me with open arms. “Come to my 
arms !” he cried, and embraced and kissed me hard upon 
both cheeks. “David,” said he, “I love you like a 
brother. And 0, man,” he cried in a kind of ecstasy, 
“am I no a bonny fighter-?” 

Thereupon he turned to the four enemies, passed 
his sword clean through each of them, and tumbled them 
out of doors one after the other. As he did so, he 
kept humming and singing and whistling to himself, 
like a man trying to recall an air; only what he was 
trying, was to make one. All the while, the flush was 
in his face, and his eyes w T ere as bright as a five-year-old 
child’s with a new to} r . And presently he sat down upon 
the table, sword in hand ; the air that he was making 
all the time began to run a little clearer, and then 
clearer still; and then out he burst with a great voice 
into a Gaelic 1 song. 

I have translated it here, not in verse (of which I have 
no skill) but at least in the king’s English. He sang 
it often afterwards, and the thing became popular; so 
that I have heard it, and had it explained to me, many’s 
the time. 

1. Gaelic. The Celtic language of the Scotch Highlands. See 
Historical Note, Introduction, page 27. 


KIDNAPPED 


116 

This is the song of the sword of Alan: 

The smith made it, 

The fire set it; 

Now it shined in the hand of Alan Breck. 

Their eyes were many and bright, 

Swift were they to behold, 

Many the hands they guided: 

The sword was alone. 

The dun deer troop over the hill, 

They are many, the hill is one; 

The dun deer vanish, 

The hill remains. 

Come to me from the hills of heather, 

Come from the isles of the sea. 

O far-beholding eagles, 

Here is your meat. 

Now this song which he made (both words and music) 
in the hour of pur victory, is something less than just 
to me, who stood beside him in the tussle. Mr. Shuan 
and five more were either killed outright or thoroughly 
disabled; but of these, two fell by my hand, the two 
that came by the skylight. Four more w 7 ere hurt, and 
of that number, one (and he not the least important) 
got his hurt from me. So that, altogether, I did my 
fair share both of the killing and the v r ounding, and 
might have claimed a place in Alan’s verses. But poets 
(as a very wise man once told me) have to think upon 
their rhymes ; and in good prose talk, Alan always did 
me more than justice. 

In the meanwdiile, I was innocent of any wrong being 
done me. For not only I knew no word of the Gaelic; 
but v 7 hat wbth the long suspense of the waiting, and the 
scurry and strain of our tw r o spirts of fighting, and 
more than all, the horror I had of some of my own 
share in it, the thing was no sooner over than I was glad 
to stagger to a seat. There was that tightness on my 
chest that I could hardly breathe; the thought of the 


THE SIEGE OF THE ROUND-HOUSE 117 

two men I had shot sat upon me like a nightmare ; and 
all upon a sudden, and before I had a guess of what was 
coming, I began to sob and cry like any child. 

Alan clapped my shoulder, and said I was a brave 
l^d and wanted nothing but sleep. 

‘Til take the first watch,” said he. “Ye’ve 3one well 
by me, David, first and last ; and I wouldn’t lose you 
for all Appin 1 — no, nor for Breadalbane.” 

So he made up my bed on the floor, and took the 
first spell, pistol in hand and sword on knee ; three hours 
by the captain’s watch upon the wall. Then he roused 
me up, and I took my turn of three hours; before the 
end of which it was broad day, and a very quiet morning, 
with a smooth, rolling sea that tossed the ship and made 
the blood run to and fro on the round-house floor, and 
a heavy rain that drummed upon the roof. All my 
watch there was nothing stirring; and by the banging 
of the helm, I knew they had even no one at the tiller. 
Indeed (as I learned afterwards) they were so many 
of them hurt or dead, and the rest in so ill a temper, 
that Mr. Riach and the captain had to take turn and 
turn (like Alan and me), or the brig might have gone 
ashore and nobody the wiser. It was a mercy the night 
had fallen so still, for the wind had gone down as 
soon as the rain began. Even as it was, I judged by the 
wailing of a great number of gulls that went crying and 
fishing round the ship, that she must have drifted pretty 
near the coast of one of the islands, of the Hebrides ; 
and at last, looking out of the door of the round-house, 
I saw the great stone hills of Skye on the right hand, 
and, a little more astern, the strange isle of Rum. 

1. Appin. A small district in Argyllshire lying along the east 
shore of Loch Linnhe. Breadalbane is in Perthshire. See map. 


CHAPTER XI 


THE CAPTAIN KNUCKLES UNDER 

Alan and I sat down to breakfast about six of the 
clock. The floor was covered with broken glass and in 
a horrid mess of blood, which took away my hunger. 
In all other ways we were in a situation not only agree- 
able but merry; having ousted the officers from their 
'own cabin, and having at command all the drink in the 
ship — both wine and spirits — and all the dainty part 
of what was eatable, such as the pickles and the fine sort 
of biscuit. This, of itself, was enough to set us in good 
humor ; but the richest part of it was this, that the 
two thirstiest men that ever came out of Scotland (Mr. 
Shuan being dead) were now shut in the forepart of 
the ship and condemned to what they hated most — cold 
water. 

“And depend upon it,” Alan said, “we shall hear 
more of them ere long. Ye may keep a man from the 
fighting but never from his bottle.” 

We made, good company for each other. Alan, 
indeed, expressed himself most lovingly ; and taking a 
knife from the table, cut me off one of the silver buttons 
from his coat. 

“I had them,” says he, “from my father, Duncan 
Stewart ; and now give ye one of them to be a keepsake 
for last night’s work. And wherever ye go and show 
that button, the friends of Alan Breck will come around 
you.” 

He said this as if he had been Charlemagne and com- 
manded armies; and indeed, much as I admired his 


THE CAPTAIN KNUCKLES UNDER 119 

courage, I was always in danger of smiling at his vanity ; 
in danger, I say, for had I not kept my countenance, I 
would be afraid to think what a quarrel might have 
followed. 

As soon as we were through with our meal, he rum- 
maged in the captain’s locker till he found a clothes- 
brush; and then taking off his coat, began to visit his 
suit and brush away the stains, with such care and labor 
as I supposed to have been only usual with women. To 
be sure, he had no other; and besides (as he said) it 
belonged to a King and so behooved to be royally looked 
after. 

For all that, when I saw what care he took to pluck 
out the threads where the button had been cut away, I 
put a higher value on his gift. 

He was still so engaged, when we were hailed by Mr. 
Riach from the deck, asking for a parley; and I, 
climbing through the skylight and sitting on the edge 
of it, pistol in hand and with a bold front, though 
inwardly in fear of broken glass, hailed him back again 
and bade him speak out. He came to the edge of the 
round-house, and stood on a coil of rope, so that his 
chin was on a level with the roof ; and we looked at 
each other a while in silence. Mr. Riach, as I do not 
think he had been very forward in the battle, so he had 
got off with nothing worse than a blow upon the cheek : 
but he looked out of heart and very weary, having been 
all night afoot, either standing watch or doctoring the 
wounded. 

“This is a bad job,” said he at last, shaking his head. 

“It was none of our choosing,” said I. 

“The captain,” says he, “would like to speak with 
your friend. They might speak at the window.” 

“And how do we know what treachery he means,?” 
cried I. 

“He means none, David,” returned Mr. Riach; “and 


KIDNAPPED 


.120 

if he did, I’ll tell ye the honest truth, we couldnae get 
the men to follow.” 

“Is that so?” said I. 

“I’ll tell ye more than that,” said he. “It’s not only 
the men; it’s me. I’m frich’ened, Davie.” And he 
smiled across at me. “No,” he continued, “what we 
w r ant is to be shu-t of him.” 

Thereupon I consulted with Alan, and the parley was 
agreed to and parole given upon either side; but this 
was ‘not the whole of Mr. Riach’s business, and he now 
begged me for a dram with such instancy and such 
reminders of his former kindness, that at last I handed 
him a pannikin w T ith about a gill of brandy. He drank 
a part, and then carried the rest down upon the deck, 
to share it (I suppose) with his superior. 

A little after, the captain came (as was agreed) to 
one of the windows, and stood there in the rain, with his 
arm in a sling, and looking stern and pale, and so old 
that my heart smote me for having fired upon him. 

Alan at once held a pistol in his face. 

“Put that thing up !” said the captain. “Have I not 
passed my word, sir? or do you seek to affront me?” 

“Captain,” said Alan, “I doubt your word is a 
breakable. Last night ye haggled and argle-bargled 
like an apple-wife; and then passed me your word, and 
gave me your hand to back it; and ye ken very well 
what was the upshot. Be damned to your wojd!” 
says he. 

“Well, well, sir,” said the captain, “ye’ll get little 
good by swearing.” (And truly that was a fault of 
which the captain was quite free.) “But we have other 
things to speak,” he continued, bitterly. “Ye’ve made 
a sore hash of my brig; I haven’t hands enough left 
to work her; and my first officer (whom I could ill 
spare) has got your sword throughout his vitals, and 
passed without speech. There is nothing left me, sir. 


THE CAPTAIN KNUCKLES UNDER 121 

v y 4 

but to put back into the port of Glasgow after hands; 
and there (by your leave) ye will find them that are 
' better able to talk to you.” 

“Ay?” said Alan; “and faith, I’ll have a talk with 
them mysel’ ! Unless there’s naebody speaks English in 
that town, I have a bonny tale for them. Fifteen tarry 
sailors upon the one side, and a man and halfling boy 
upon the other! O, man, it’s peetiful!” 

Hoseason flushed red. 

“No,” continued Alan, “that’ll no do. Ye’ll just have 
to set me ashore as we agreed.” 

, “Ay,” said Hoseason, “but my first officer is dead — 

ye ken best how. There’s none of the rest of us acquaint 
i with this coast, sir; and it’s one very dangerous to 
| ships.” 

“I give ye your choice,” says Alan. “Set me on dry 
ground in Appin, or Ardgour , 1 or in Morven, or 
Arisaig, or Morar; or, in brief where ye please, within 
| thirty miles of my own country ; except in a country of 
j the Campbells’. That’s a broad target. If ye miss that, 
ye must be as feckless at the sailoring as I. have found 
ye at the fighting. Why, my poor country people in 
their bit cobles 2 pass from island to island in all weathers, 
ay, and by night too, for the matter of that.” 

“A coble’s not a ship, sir,” said the captain. “It has 
nae draught of water.” 

“Well, then, to Glasgow if ye list !” says Alan. “We’ll 
have the laugh of ye at the least.” 

“My mind runs little upon laughing,” said the cap- 
tain. “But all this will cost money, sir.” 

“Well, sir,” says Alan, “I am nae weathercock. Thirty 
guineas, if ye land me on the sea-side ; and sixty, if ye 
put me in the Linnhe Loch.” 

1. Ardgour is situated near the head of Loch Linnhe ; Morven 
lies along its western shore. Arisaig and Morar are on the eastern 
shore of Sleat Sound, northwest of Ardgour. See map. 

2. Cobles. Small boats. 


122 


KIDNAPPED 


“But see, sir, where we lie, we are but a few hours 5 
sail from Ardnamurchan,” said Hoseason. “Give me 
sixty, and I’ll set ye there.” 

“And I’m to wear my brogues 1 and run jeopardy of 
the redcoats to please you?” cries Alan. “No, sir, if 
ye want sixty guineas, earn them, and set me in my own 
country.” 

“It’s to risk the brig, sir,” said the captain, “and your 
own lives along with her.” 

“Take it or want it,” says Alan. 

“Could ye pilot us at all?” asked the captain, who 
was frowning to himself. 

“Well, it’s doubtful,” said Alan. “I’m more of a 
fighting man (as ye have seen for yoursel’) than a 1 
sailor-man. But I have been often enough picked up 



of the lie of it.” 


The captain shook his head, still frowning. 

“If I had lost less money on this unchancy cruise,” 
says he, “I would see you in a rope’s-end before I risked 
my brig, sir. But be it as ye will. As soon as I get 
a slant of wind (and there’s some coming, or I’m the 
more mistaken) I’ll put it in hand. But there’s one 
thing more. We may meet in with a king’s fehip and she 
may lay us aboard, sir, with no blame of mine; they 
keep the cruisers thick upon this coast, ye ken who for. 
Now, sir, if that was to befall, ye might leave the 
money.” 

“Captain,” says Alan, “if ye see a pennant, it shall 
be your part to run away. And now, as I hear }^ou’re 
a little short of brandy in the forepart, I’ll offer ye a 
change : a bottle of brandy against two buckets of 
water.” 

1. Brogues. Rude shoes made of untanned hide, with the hair 
turned outward. See Historical Note, Introduction, page 27. 


THE CAPTAIN KNUCKLES UNDER 123 

That was the last clause of the treaty, and was duly 
executed on both sides; so that Alan and I could at last 
wash out the round-house and be quit of the memorials 
of those whom we had slain, and the captain and Mr. 
Riach could be happy again in their own way, the name 
of which was drink. 


CHAPTER XII 


I HEAR OF THE RED FOX 

Before we had done cleaning out the round-house, 
a breeze sprang up from a little to the east of north. 
This blew off the rain and brought out the sun. 

And here I must explain ; and the reader would do 
well to look at a map. On the day when the fog fell 
and we ran down Alan’s boat, we had been running : 
through the Little Minch. At daw T n after the battle, 
we lay becalmed to the east of the Isle of Canna or 
between that and Isle Eriska in the chain of the Long 
Island. Now to get from there to the Linnhe Loch the 
straight course w r as through the narrows of the Sound 
of Mull. But the captain had no chart; he was afraid 
to trust his brig so deep among the islands ; and the . 
w ind serving well, he preferred to go by west of Tiree J 
and come up under the southern coast of the great Isle 
of Mull. 

All day the breeze held in the same point, and rather 
freshened than died dow r n ; and tow r ard afternoon, a 
swell began to set in from round the outer Hebrides. 1 
Our course, to go round about the inner isles, was to 
the west of south, so that at first we had this swell upon 
our beam, and were much rolled about. But after night- 
fall, when w T e had turned the end of Tiree and began 
to head more to the east, the sea came right astern. 

Meanwhile, the early part of the day, before the sw r ell 
came up, was very pleasant; sailing, as we were, in a 
bright sunshine and with many mountainous islands upon 
different sides. Alan and I sat in the round-house with 

124 


I HEAR OF THE RED FOX 125 

p j 

the doors open on each side (the wind being straight 
astern) and smoked a pipe or two of the captain’s fine 
tobacco. It was at this time we heard each other’s 
stories, which' was the more important to me, as I gained 
some knowledge of that wild Highland country, on 
which I w T as so soon to land. In those days, so close on 
the back of the great rebellion, it was needful a man 
| should know what be was doing when he went upon the 
heather. 

It was I that showed the example, telling him all my 
misfortune ; which he heard with great good nature. 
Only, when I came to mention that good friend of mine, 
Mr. Campbell the minister, Alan fired up and cried out 
that he hated all that were of that name. 

“Why,” said I, “he is a man you should be proud 
to give your hand to.” 

“I know nothing I 'would help a Campbell to,” says 
he, “unless it was a leaden bullet. I would hunt all of 
that name like blackcocks. If I lay dying, I would 
crawl upon my knees to my chamber window for a shot 
at one.” 

“Why, Alan,” I cried, “what ails ye at the Campbells?” 

“Well,” says he, “ye ken very well that I am an 
Appin Stewart , 1 and the Campbells have long harried 
and wasted those of my name; ay, and got lands of us 
by treachery — but never with the sword,” he cried 
loudly, and with the word brought down his fist upon 
the table. But I paid the less attention to this, for I 
knew it was usually said by those who have the under 
hand. “There’s more than that,” he continued, “and 
all in the same story: lying words, lying papers, tricks 
fit for a peddler, and the show of what’s legal over all, 
to make a man the more angry.” 

“You that are so wasteful of your buttons,” said I, 

1. Appin Steicart. A member of the Stewart elan occupying 
Appin. 


KIDNAPPED 


126 

G » 

“I can hardly think you would be a good judge of 
business.” 

‘Ah!” says he, falling again to smiling, “I got my 
wastefulness from the same man I got the buttons from; 
and that was my poor father, Duncan Stewart, grace 
be to him ! He was the prettiest man of his kindred ; 
and the best swordsman in the Hielands, David, and 
that is the same as to say, in all the world, I should 
ken, for it was him that taught me. He was in the Black 
Watch , 1 when first it was mustered ; and like other gen- 
tleman privates, had a gillie 2 at his back to carry his 
firelock for him on the march. Well, the King, it 
appears, was wishful to see Hieland swordsmanship ; and 
my father and three more were chosen out and sent to 
London town, to let him see it at the best. So they 
were had into the palace and showed the whole art of 
the sword for two hours at a stretch, before King George 
and Queen Carline , 3 and the Butcher Cumberland , 4 and 
many more of whom I have nae mind. And when they 
were through, the King (for all he was a rank usurper) 
spoke them fair and gave each man three guineas in his 
hard. Now, as they were going out of the palace, thej 
had a porter’s lodge to go by; and it came in on nry 
father, as he was perhaps the first private Hieland gen- 
tleman that had ever gone by that door, it was right he 
should give the poor porter a proper notion of their 
quality. So he gives the King’s three guineas into the 
man’s hand, as if it was his common custom ; the three 

1- Black Watch. A body of Scotch Highlanders employed by the 
English government to watch the Highlands in 1725. They were en- 
rolled as a regular regiment in 1739. 

2. Gillie. A young man or boy employed as a servant. 

3. King George and Queen Carline. George II and his wife, 
Caroline of Anspach. 

4. Butcher Cumberland. The Duke of Cumberland allowed no 
quarter to the Scotch at Culloden. He ordered two hundred prisoners 
to be shot, and burnt the dwellings of the rebel clans living in the 
glens. See Historical Note, Introduction, page 27. 


I HEAR OF THE RED FOX 127 

others that came behind him did the same; and there 
they were on the street, never a penny the better for 
their pains. Some say it was one, that was the first 
to fee the King’s porter; and some say it was another; 
but the truth of it is, that it was Duncan Stewart, as 
I am willing to prove with either sword or pistol. And 
that was the father that I had, God rest him.” 

“I think he was not the man to leave you rich,” said I. 

“And that’s true,” said Alan. “He left me my breeks 1 
to cover me, and little besides. And that was how I 
f came to enlist, which was a black spot upon my character 
at the best of times, and would still be a sore job for 
ime if I fell among the redcoats.” 9 

“What?” cried I, “were you in the English army?” 

“That was I,” said Alan. “But I deserted to the right 
side at Preston Pans 2 — and that’s some comfort.” 

I could scarcely share this view: holding desertion 
under arms for an unpardonable fault in honor. But 
for all I was so young, I was wiser than say my thought. 
“Dear, dear,” says I, “the punishment is death.” 

“Ay,” said he, “if they got hands on me, it would 
Fe a short shrift and a lang tow for Alan ! But I have 
■the King of France’s commission in my pocket, which 
would aye be some protection.” 

“I misdoubt it much,” said I. 

“I have doubts mysel’,” said Alan, drily. 

“And, good heaven, man,” cried I, “you that are a 
condemned rebel, and a deserter, and a man of the 
French King’s — what tempts ye back into this country? 
It’s a braving of Providence.” 

“Tut,” says Alan, “I haye been back every year since 
forty-six !” 

“And what brings ye, man?” cried I. 

“Well, ye see, I weary for my friends and country,” 

1. Breeks. Breeches. 

2. Preston Pans. See Historical Note, Introduction, page 27. 


128 


KIDNAPPED 


said he. “France is a braw place, nae doubt; but I 
weary for the heather and the deer. And then I have 
bit things that I attend to. Whiles 1 I pick up a few 
lads to serve the King of France: recruits, ye see; and 
that’s aye a little money. But the heart of the matter 
is the business of my chief, Ardshiel.” 

“I thought they called your chief Appin,” said I. 

“Ay, but Ardshiel is the captain of the clan,” said 
he, which scarcely cleared my mind. “Ye see, David, 
he that was all his life so great a man, and come of the 
blood and bearing the name of kings, is now brought 
down to live in a French town like a poor and private 
person. He that had four hundred swords at his 
whistle I have seen, with these eyes of mine, buying 
butter in the market-place, and taking it home in a 
kale-leaf . 2 This is not only a pain but a disgrace to 
us of his family and clan. There are the bairns forby, 
the children and the hope of Appin, that must be learned 
their letters and how toroid a sword, in that far 
country. Now, the tenants of Appin have to pay a rent 
to King George; but their hearts are staunch, they are 
true to their chief ; and what with love and a bit of 
pressure, and maybe a threat or two, the poor folk scrape 
up a second rent for Ardshiel. Well, David, I’m the 
hand that carries it.” And he struck the belt about his 
body, so that the guineas rang. 

“Do they pay both?” cried I. 

“Ay, David, both,” sa} T s he. 

“What! two rents?” I repeated. 

“Ay, David,” said he. “I told a different tale to yon 
captain man ; but this is the truth of it. And it’s won- 
derful to me how little pressure is needed. But that’s 
the handiwork of my good kinsman and my father’s 
friend, James of the Glens; James Stewart, that is: 

1. Whiles. Occasionally, at times. 

2. Kale-leaf. Cabbage-leaf. 


/ HEAR OF THE RED FOX 129 

Ardshiel’s half-brother. He it is that gets the money in, 
I and does the management.” 

t This was the first time I heard the name of that James 
I Stewart, who was afterwards so famous at the time of 
i his hanging. But I took little heed at the moment, for 
J all my mind was occupied with the generosity of these 
poor Highlanders. 

“I call it noble,” I cried. “Fm a Whig, or little 
better; but I call it noble.” 

“Ay,” said he, “ye’re a Whig, but ye’re a gentleman ; 

! and that’s what does it. Now, if ye were one of the 
cursed race of Campbell, ye would gnash your teeth to 
hear tell of it. If ye were the Red Fox.” . . . And at 
that name his teeth shut together, and he ceased speak- 
ing. I have seen many a grim face, but never a grimmer 
than Alan’s when he had named the Red Fox. 

“And who is the Red Fox?” I asked, daunted, but 
still curious. 

“Who is he?” cried Alan. “Well, and I’ll tell you 
that. When the men of the clans were broken at 
Culloden , 1 and the good cause went down, and the horses 
rode over the fetlocks in the best blood of the north, 
Ardshiel had to flee like a poor deer upon the mountains 
[• — he and his lady and his bairns. A sair job we had of 
it before we got him shipped; and while he still lay in 
the heather, the English rogues, that couldnae come at 
his life, were striking at his rights. They stripped him 
of his powers; they stripped him of his lands; they 
plucked the weapons from tjie hands of his clansmen, 
that had borne arms for thirty centuries; ay, and the 
very clothes off their backs^so that it’s now a sin to 
wear a tartan plaid, and a man may he cast into a 
gaol if he has but a kilt about his legs. One thing they 
couldnae kill. That was the love the clansmen bore their 
chief. These guineas are the proof of it. And now, 
1. Culloden. See Historical Note, Introduction, page 27. 


130 


KIDNAPPED 


in there steps a man, a Campbell, red-headed Colin of 
Gleijure ” 

“Is that him you call the Red Fox?” said I. 

“Will ye bring me his brush?” cried Alan, fiercely. 
“Ay, that’s the man. In he steps, and gets papers from 
King George, to be so-called King’s factor on the lands 
of Appin. And at first he sings small, and is hail- 
fellow-well-met with Sheamus — that’s James of the Glens, 
my chieftain’s agent. But by-and-by, that came to his 
ears that I have just told you; how the poor commons 
of Appin, the farmers and the crofters and the boumen , 1 
were wringing their very plaids to get a second rent, 
and send it over-seas for Ardshiel and his poor bairns. 
What was it ye called it, when I told ye?” 

“I called it noble, Alan,” said I. 

“And you little better than a common Whig!” cried 
Alan. “But when it came to Colin Roy, the black. 
Campbell blood in him ran wild. He sat gnashing his 
teeth at the w r ine table. What ! should a Stewart get 
a bite of bread, and him not be able to prevent it ? Ah ! 
Red Fox, if ever I hold you at a gun’s end, the Lord 
have pity upon ye!” (Alan stopped to swallow down 
his anger.) “Well, David, w T hat does he do? He 
declares all the farms to let. And thinks he, in his black 
heart, ‘I’ll soon get other tenants that’ll overbid these 
Stewarts, and Maccolls, and Macrobs’ (for these are all 
names in my clan, David), ‘and then,’ thinks he, ‘Ardshiel 
will have- to hold his bonnet on a French roadside.’” 

“Well,” said I, “what followed?” 

Alan laid down his pipe, which he had long since 
suffered to go out, and set his two hands upon his knees. 

“Ay,” said he, “ye’ll never guess that! For these 
same Stewarts, and Maccolls, and Macrobs (that had 

1. Crofters and the houmen. A crofter is one who cultivates a 
small farm ; a bouman, the tenant of a dairy farm who takes his stock 
from the landlord on shares. 


I HEAR OF THE RED FOX 


131 

two rents to pay, one to King George by stark force, 
and one to Ardshiel by natural kindness) offered him a 
better price than any Campbell in all broad Scotland; 
and far he sent seeking them — as far as to the sides of 
the Clyde and the cross of Edinburgh 1 — seeking and 
fleeching , 2 and begging them to come, where there was a 
Stewart to be starved and a red-headed hound of a 
Campbell to be pleasured!” 

“Well, Alan,” said I, “that is a strange story, and a 
fine one, too. And Whig as I may be, I am glad the 
man was beaten.” 

“Him beaten?” echoed Alan. “It’s little ye ken of 
Campbells and less of the Red Fox. Him beaten? No: 
nor will be, till his blood’s on the hillside! But if the 
day comes, David man, that I can find time and leisure 
for a bit of hunting, there grows not enough heather 
in all Scotland to hide him from my vengeance!” 

“Man Alan,” said I, “ye are neither very w T ise nor 
■very Christian to blow off so many w r ords of anger. 
They w r ill do the man ye call the Fox no harm, and 
yourself no good. Tell me your tale plainly out. What 
did he next?” 

“And that’s a good observe, David,” said Alan. 
“Troth and indeed, they will do him no harm ; the more’s 
the pity ! And barring that about Christianity ( of which 
my opinion is quite otherwise, or I would be nae 
Christian) I am much of your mind.” 

“Opinion here or opinion there,” said I, “it’s a kent 
thing that Christianity forbids revenge.” 

“Ah,” said he, “it’s well seen it w r as a Campbell taught 
ye! It would be a convenient world for them and their 
sort, if there was no such thing as a lad and a gun 

1. The Clyde and the cross of Edinburgh. The Firth of Clyde, 
into which the River Clyde flows, is on the west coast of Scotland. The 
old city cross (now restored) stands in the heart of Edinburgh. 

2. Fleeching. Coaxing or flattering. 


KIDNAPPED 


132 

% 

behind a heather bush ! But that’s nothing to the point. 
This is what he did.” 

“Ay,” said I, “come to that.” 

“Well, David,” said he, “since he couldnae be rid of 
the royal commons by fair means, he swore he would 
be rid of them by foul. Ardshiel was to starve: that 
was the thing he aimed at. And since them that fed him 
in his exile wouldnae be bought out right or wrong, 
he would drive them out. Therefore he sent for lawyers, 
and papers, and redcoats to stand at his back. And the 
kindly folk of that country must all pack and tramp, 
every father’s son out of his father’s house, and out 
of the place where he was bred and fed, and played when 
he was a callant. 1 And who are to succeed them ? Bare- 
leggit beggars ! King George is to whistle for his rents ; 
he maun dow with less, 2 he can spread his butter thinner : 
what cares Red Colin? If he can hurt Ardshiel, he has 
his wish; if he can pluck the meat from my chieftain’s 
table, and the bit toys out of his children’s hands, he 
will gang hame singing to Glenure 1?’ 

“Let me have a word,” said I. “Be sure, if they take 
less rents, be sure Government has a finger in the pie. 
It’s not this Campbell’s fault, man — it’s his orders. And 
if ye killed this Colin tomorrow, what better would ye 
be? There ^vould be another factor in his shoes, as fast 
as spur can drive.” 

“Ye’re a good lad in a fight,” said Alan; “but man! 
ye have Whig blood in ye !” 

He spoke kindly enough, but there was so much anger 
under his contempt that I thought it was wise to change 
the conversation. I expressed my wonder how, with the 
Highlands covered with troops and guarded like a city 
in a siege, a man in his situation could come and go 
without arrest. 

1. Gallant. Lad. 

2. He maun dow with less. He must get alone with less. 


1 HEAR OF THE RED FOX 


133 

7 ) 

“It’s easier than ye would think,” said Alan. “A 
bare hillside (ye see) is like all one road; if there’s a 
j sentry at one place ye just go by another. And then 
heather’s a great help. And everywhere there are friends’ 
[ houses and friends’ byres and haystacks. And besides, 
i when folk talk of a country covered with troops, it’s 
but a kind of a byword at the best. A soldier covers 
nae mair of it than his boot-soles. I have fished a water 
with a sentry on the other side of the fyrae, and killed 
^ a fine trout ; and I have sat in a heather bush within six 
feet of another, and learned a real bonny tune from his 
whistling. This was it,” said he, and whistled me the air. 

“And then, besides,” he continued, “it’s no sae bad 
now as it was in forty-six. The tlielands are what they 
call pacified. Small wonder, with never a gun or a 
sword left from Cantyre to Cape Wrath, but what tenty 1 
folk have hidden in their thatch ? But what I w r ould like 
to ken, David, is just how long? Not long, ye would 
think, with men like Ardshiel in exile and men like the 
Red Fox sitting birling 2 the wine and oppressing the 
poor at home. But it’s a kittle 3 thing to decide what 
folk’ll bear, and what they will not. Or why would Red 
Colin be riding his horse all over my poor country of 
Appin, and never a pretty lad to put a bullet in him?” 

And with this Alan fell into a muse, and for a long 
v time sate very sad and silent. 

I will add the rest of what I have to say about my 
friend, that he was skilled in all kinds of music, but 
principally pipe-music ; was a well-considered poet in 
his own tongue; had read several books both in French 
and English; was a dead shot, a good angler, and an 
excellent fencer with the small sword as w T ell as with his 
own particular weapon. For his faults, they were on 


1. Tenty. Cautious or careful. 

2. Birling. Drinking (in company). 

3. Kittle. Difficult, “ticklish.” 


KIDNAPPED 


134 

his face, and I now knew them all. But the worst of 
them, his childish propensity to take offence and to 
pick quarrels, he greatly laid aside in my case, out of 
regard for the battle of the round-house. But whether 
it was because I had done well myself, or because I had 
been a witness of his own much greater prowess, is more 
than I can tell. For though he had a great taste for 
courage in other men, yet he admired it most in Alan 
Breck. - 


CHAPTER XIII 


THE LOSS OF THE BRIG 

It was already late at night, and as dark as it ever 
would be at that season of the year (and that is to say, 
it was still pretty bright), when Hoseason clapped his 
head into the round-house door. 

“Here,” said he, “come out and see if ye can pilot.” 

“Is this one of your tricks?” asked Alan. 

“Do I look like tricks?” cries the captain. “I have 
other things to think of — my brig’s in danger!” 

By the concerned look of his face, and, above all, by 
the sharp tones in which he spoke of his brig, it was 
plain to both of us he was in deadly earnest; and so 
Alan and I, with no great fear of treachery, stepped on 
deck. 

The sky was clear ; it blew hard, and was bitter cold ; 
a great deal of daylight lingered; and the moon, which 
was nearly full, shone brightly. The brig was close 
hauled, so as to round the south-west corner of the 
Island of Mull; the hills of which (and Ben More above 
them all, with a wisp of mist upon the top of it) lay 
full upon the larboard bow. Though it was no good 
point of sailing for the Covenant , she tore through the 
seas at a great rate, pitching and straining, and pursued 
by the westerly swell. 

Altogether it was no such ill night to keep the seas 
in ; and I had begun to wonder what it was that sat 
so heavily upon the captain, when the brig rising sud- 
denly on the top of a high swell, he pointed and cried 
to us to look. Away on the lee bow, a thing like a 


KIDNAPPED 


136 

/tJ 0 

fountain rose out of the moonlit sea, and immediately 
after we heard a low sound of roaring. 

“What do ye call that?” asked the captain gloomily. 

“The sea breaking on a reef,” said Alan. “And now 
ye ken where it is; and what better would ye have?” 

“Ay,” said Hoseason, “if it was the only one.” 

And sure enough just as he spoke there came a second 
fountain further to the south. 

“There!” said Hoseason. “Ye see for yourself. If 
I had kent of these reefs, if I had had a chart, or if 
Shuan had been spared, it’s not sixty guineas, no, nor 
six hundred, would have made me risk my brig in sic a 
stoneyard ! But you, sir, that was to pilot us, have ye 
never a word?” 

“I’m thinking,” said Alan, “these’ll be what they call . 
the Torran Rocks.” 

“Are there many of them?” says the captain. 

“Truly, sir, I am nae pilot,” said Alan ; “but it sticks 
in my mind, there sire ten miles of them.” 

Mr. Riach and the captain looked at each other. 

“There’s a way through them, I suppose?” said the I 
captain. 

“Doubtless,” said Alan; “but where? But it somehow 
runs in my mind once more, that it is clearer under the 
land.” 

“So?” said Hoseason. “We’ll have to haul our wind, 
then, Mr. Riach; we’ll have to come as near in about 
the end of Mull as we can take her, sir; and even then 
we’ll have the land to kep the wind off us, .and that 
stoneyard on our lee. Well, we’re in for it now, and 
may as well crack on.” 

With that he gave an order to the steersman, and sent 
Riach to the foretop. There were only five men on 
deck, counting the officers; these were all that were fit 
(or, at least, both fit and willing) for their work; and 
two of these were hurt. So, as I say, it fell to Mr. 


THE LOSS OF THE BRIG 


Riach to go aloft 


137 

/V/ 


and he sat there looking out and 
hailing the deck with news of all he saw. 

“The sea to the south is thick,” he cried ; and then, 
after a while, “It does seem clearer in by the land.” 

“Well, sir,” said Hoseason to Alan, “we’ll try your 
way of it. But I think I might as well trust to a blind 
fiddler. Pray God you’re right.” 

“Pray God I am !” says Alan to me. “But where did 
I hear it? Well, w T ell, it will be as it must.” 

As we got nearer to the turn of the land the reefs 
began to be sown here and there on our Very path; and 
Mr. Riach sometimes cried down to us to change the 
course. Sometimes, indeed, none too soon ; for one reef 
was so close on the brig’s weather board that when a 
sea burst upon it the lighter sprays fell upon her deck 
and wetted us like rain. 

The brightness of the night showed us these perils as 
clearly as by day, which was, perhaps, the more alarming. 
It showed me, too, the face of the captain as he stood 
by the steersman, now on one foot, now on the other, 
and sometimes blowing in his hands, but still listening 
and looking and as steady as steel. Neither he nor Mr. 
Riach had shown well in the fighting; but I saw they 
were brave in their own trade, and admired them all the 
more because I found Alan very white. 

“Ochone, David,” said he, “this is no the kind of 
death I fancy.” 

“What, Alan!” I cried, “you’re not afraid?” 

“No,” said he, wetting his lips, “but you’ll allow 
yourself it’s a cold ending.” 

By this time, now and then sheering to one side or the 
other to avoid a reef, but still hugging the wind and 
the land, we had got round Iona and begun to come 
alongside Mull. The tide of the tail of the land ran 
very strong, and threw the brig about. Two hands 
were put to the helm, and Hoseason himself would some- 


KIDNAPPED 


138 

/t 

times lend a help ; and it was strange to see three strong 
men throw their weight upon the tiller, and it (like a 
living thing) struggle against and drive them back. 
This would have been the greater danger, had not the 
sea been for some while free of obstacles. Mr. Riach, 
besides, announced from the top that he saw clear water 
ahead. 

“Ye were right,” said Hoseason to Alan. “Ye have ' 
^saved the brig, sir ; I’ll mind that when we come to clear 
accounts.” And I believe he not only meant what he 
said, but would have done it; so high a place did the 
Covenant hold in his affections. 

But this is matter only for conjecture, things having 
gone otherwise than he forecast. 

“Keep her away a point,” sings out Mr. Riach. “Reef 
to windward !” 

And just at the same time the tide caught the brig, 
and threw the wind out of her sails. She came round 
into the wind like a top, and the next moment struck 
the reef with such a dunch as threw us all flat upon , 
the deck, and came near to shake Mr. Riach from his 
place upon the mast. 

I was on my feet in a minute, 'the reef on which 
we had struck was close in under the south-west end of j 
Mull, off a little isle they call Earraid, which lay low 
and black upon the larboard. Sometimes the swell broke 
clean over us ; sometimes it only ground the poor brig 
upon the reef, so that we could hear her beat herself 
to pieces; and what with the great noise of the sails, 
and the singing of the wind, and the flying of the spray 
in the moonlight, and the sense of danger, I think my 
head was partly turned, for I could scarcely understand 
the things I saw. 

Presently, I observed Mr. Riach and the seamen busy 
round the skiff ; and still in the same blank, ran over to 
assist them; and as soon as I set my hand to work, my 


THE LOSS OF THE BRIG 


139 

mind came clear again. It was no very easy task, for 
the skiff lay amidships and was full of hamper, and 
the breaking of the heavier seas continually forced us to 
give over and hold on; but we all wrought like horses 
while we could. 

Meanwhile such of the wounded as could move came 
clambering out of the fore-scuttle and began to help; 
while the rest that lay helpless in their bunks harrowed 
me with screaming and begging to be saved. 

The captain took no part. It seemed he was struck 
stupid. He stood holding by the shrouds, talking to 
himself and groaning out aloud whenever the ship ham- 
mered on the rock. His brig was like wife and child 
to him ; he had looked on, day by day, at the mis- 
handling of poor Ransome ; but when it came to the 
brig, he seemed to suffer along with her. 

All the time of our working at the boat, I remember 
only one other thing: that I asked Alan, looking across 
at the shore, w T hat country it was ; and he answered, it 
was the worst possible for him, for it w T as a land of 
the Campbells. 

We had one of the’ wounded men told off to keep a 
watch upon the seas / and cry us warning. Well, we 
had the boat about ready to be launched, when this 
man sang out pretty shrill: “For God’s sake, hold on!” 
We knew by his tone that it was something more than 
ordinary; and sure enough, there followed a sea so huge 
that it lifted the brig right up and canted her over on 
her beam. Whether the cry came too late or my hold 
was too weak, I know not; but at the sudden tilting 
of the ship, I was cast clean over the bulwarks into the 
sea. 

I went down, and drank my fill; and then came up, 
and got a blink of the moon ; and then down again. 
They say a man sinks the third time for good. I cannot 
be made like other folk, then; for I would not like to 


KIDNAPPED 


140 



write how often I went down or how often I came up 
again. All the while, I was being hurled along, and 
beaten upon and choked, and then swallowed whole ; and 
the thing was so distracting to my wits, that I was 
neither sorry nor afraid. 

Presently, I found I was holding to a spar, which 
helped me somewhat. And then all of a sudden I was 
in quiet water, and began to come to myself. 

It was the spare yard I had got hold of, and I was 
amazed to see how far I had traveled from the brig. I 
hailed her, indeed; but it was plain she was already out 
of cry. She was still holding together; but whether or 
not they had yet launched the boat, I was too far off 
and too low down to see. 

While I was hailing the brig, I spied a tract of water 
lying between us, where no great waves came, but which 
yet boiled white all over and bristled in the moon with 
rings and bubbles. Sometimes the whole tract swung 
to one side, like the tail of a live serpent; sometimes, 
for a glimpse, it all would disappear and then boil up 
again. What it was I had no guess, which for the time 
increased my fear of it; but I now know it must have 
been the roost or tide-race , 1 which had carried me away 
so fast and tumbled me about so cruelly, and at last, 
as if tired of that play, had flung out me and the spare 
yard upon its landward margin. 

I now lay quite becalmed, and began to feel that a man 
can die of cold as w r ell as of drowning. The shores of 
Earraid were close in ; I could see in the moonlight the 
dots of heather and the sparkling of the mica in the 
rocks. 

“Well,” thought I to myself, “if I cannot get as far 
as that, it’s strange !” 

I had no skill of swimming, Essen water being small 
in our neighborhood ; but when I laid hold upon the 
1. Roost or tide race. Strong tide or current. 


THE LOSS OF THE BRIG 141 

v /c>^T 

yard with both arms, and kicked out with both feet, I 
soon began to find that I was moving. Hard work it 
was, and mortally slow ; but in about an hour of kicking 
and splashing, I had got well in between the points of 
a sandy bay surrounded by low hills. 

The sea was here quite quiet; there was no sound of 
any surf ; the moon shone clear ; and I thought in my 
heart I had never seen a place so desert and desolate. 
But it w T as dry land ; and when at last it grew so shallow 
that I could leave the yard and wade ashore' upon my 
feet, I cannot tell if I w T as more tired or more grateful. 
Both at least, I was: tired as I never was before that 
night; and grateful to God, as I trust I have been often, 
though never with more cause. 


CHAPTER XIV 

THE ISLET 1 

With my stepping ashore, I began the most unhappy 
part of my adventures. It was half-past twelve in the 
morning, and though the wind was broken by the land, 
it was a cold night. I dared not sit down (for I thought 
I should have frozen), but took off my shoes and walked 
to and fro upon the sand, barefoot and beating my 
breast, with infinite weariness. There was no sound of 
man or cattle ; not a cock crew, though it was about the 
hour of their first waking; only the surf broke outside 
in the distance, which put me in mind of my perils and 
those of my friend. To walk by the sea at that hour 
of the morning, and in a place so desert-like and 
lonesome, struck me with a kind of fear. 

As soon as the day began to break, I put on my shoes 
and climbed a hill — the ruggedest scramble I ever under- 
took — falling, the whole way, between big blocks of 
granite or leaping from one to another. When I got 
to the top the dawn was come. There was no sign of 
the brig, which must have lifted from the reef and sunk. 
The boat, too, was nowhere to be seen. There was 
never a sail upon the ocean ; and in what I could see 
of the land, was neither house nor man. 

I was afraid to think what had befallen my shipmates, 
and afraid to look longer at so empty a scene. What 
with my wet clothes and weariness, and my belly that 
now began to ache with hunger, I had enough to trouble 

1. The Islet. For a fuller description of Earraid, see Memoirs of 
an Islet in Memoirs and Portraits. 

142 


THE ISLET 


143 

me without that. So I set off eastward along the soutfi 
coast, hoping to find a house where I might warm myself, 
and perhaps get news of those I had lost. And at the 
worst, I considered the sun would soon rise and dry 
my clothes. 

After a little, my w ay was stopped by a creek or inlet 
of the sea, which seemed to run pretty deep into the 
land ; and as I had no means to get across, I must needs 
change my direction to go about the end of it. It 
was still the roughest kind of walking ; indeed the whole, 
not only of Earraid, but of the neighboring part of 
Mull (which they call the Ross) is nothing but a jumble 
of granite rocks wuth heather in 'among. At first the 
creek kept narrowing as I had looked to see; but pres- 
ently to my surprise it began to widen out again. At 
this I scratched my head, but had still no notion of the 
truth; until at last I came to a rising ground, and it 
burst upon me all in a moment that I was cast upon 
a little, barren isle, and cut off on every side by the 
salt seas. 

Instead of the sun rising to dry me, it came on to rain, 
with a thick mist; so that my case was lamentable. 

I stood in the rain, and shivered, and wondered what 
to do, till it occurred to me that perhaps the creek was 
fordable. Back I went to the narrowest point and 
waded in. But not three yards from shore, I plumped 
in head over ears; and if ever I was heard of more it 
was rather by God’s grace than my own prudence. I 
w r as no wetter (fof that could hardly be), but I was all 
the colder for this mishap; and having lost another 
hope, was the more unhappy. 

And now, all at once, the yard came in my head. 
What had carried me through the roost, would surely 
serve me to cross this little quiet creek in safety. With 
that I set off, undaunted, across the top of the ?*le, 
to fetch and carry it back. It was a weary tramp in 


KIDNAPPED 


144 

all ways, and if hope had not buoyed me up, I must 
have cast myself down and given up. Whether with the 
sea salt, or because I was growing fevered, I \^as dis- 
tressed with thirst, and had to stop, as I went, and drink 
the peaty water out of the hags . 1 

I came to the bay at last, more dead than alive ; and 
at the first glance, I thought the yard was something 
further out than when I left it. In I went, for the third 
time, into the sea. The sand was smooth and firm and 
shelved gradually down; so that I could wade out. till 
the water was almost to my neck, and the little waves 
splashed into my face. But at that depth my feet began 
to leave me and I durst venture in no further. As for 
the yard, I saw it bobbing very quietly some twenty feet 
in front of me. 

I had borne up well until this last disappointment; 
but at that I came ashore, and flung myself down upon 
the sands and wept. 

The time I spent upon the island is still so horrible a 
thought to me, that I must pass it lightly over. In all 
the books I have read of people cast away, they had 
either their pockets full of tools, or a chest of things 
would he thrown upon the beach along with them, as 
if on purpose. My case was very different. I ha*d noth- 
ing in my pockets but money and Alan’s silver button ; 
and being inland bred, I was as much short of knowledge 
as of means. 

I knew indeed that shell-fish were counted good to 
eat; and among the rocks of the isle I found a great 
plenty of limpets, which at first I could scarcely strike 
from their places, not knowing quickness to be needful. 
There were, besides, some of the little shells that we 
call buckies; I think periwinkle is the English name. 
Of these two I made my whole diet, devouring them cold 
1. Hags. The same as peat-hags ; cf. note on page 56. 


THE ISLET 


145 

/d 

and raw as I found them ; and so hungry was I, that 
at first they seemed, to me delicious. 

Perhaps they were out of 'season, or perhaps there 
was something wrong in the sea about my island. But 
at least I had no sooner eaten my first meal than I was 
seized with giddiness and retching, and lay for a long 
time no better than dead. A second trial o‘f the same 
food (indeed I had no other) did better with me and 
revived my strength. But as long as I was on the 
island, I never knew what to expect when I had eaten ; 
sometimes all was well, and sometimes I was thrown into 
a miserable sickness ; nor could I ever distinguish what 
particular fish it was that hurt me. 

All day .it streamed rain ; the island ran like a sop ; 
there w T as no dry spot to be found; and when I lay 
down that night, between two boulders, that made a kind 
of roof, my feet were in a bog. 

The second day, I crossed the island to all sides. 
There was no one part of it better than another ; it was 
all desolate and rocky ; nothing living on it but game 
birds which I lacked the means to kill, and the gulls which 
haunted the outlying rocks in a prodigious “number. 
But the creek, or strait, that cut off the isle from the 
main land of the Ross, opened out on the north into a 
bay, and the bay again opened into the Sound of Iona; 
and it was the neighborhood of this place that I chose 
to be my home; though if I had thought upon the 
very name of home in such a spot, I must have burst 
out crying. 

I had good reasons for my choice. There was in this 
part of the isle a little hut of a house like a pig’s hut, 
where fishers used to sleep when they came there upon 
their business ; but the turf roof of it had fallen entirely 
in; so that the hut was of no use to me, and gave me 
less shelter than my rocks. What was more important, 
the shell-fish on which I lived grew there in great plenty ; 


KIDNAPPED 


146 

lit 

when the tide w T as out I could gather a peck at a time: 
and this was doubtless a convenience. But the other' 
reason went deeper. I had become in no way used to the 
horrid solitude of the isle, but still looked round me on 
all sides (like a man that was hunted) between fear ai)d 
hope that I might see some human creature coming. 
Now, from a little up the hillside* over the bay, I could 
catch a sight of the great, ancient church and the roofs 
of the people’s houses in Iona. And on the other hand, 
over the low country of the Ross, I saw smoke go up 
morning and evening, as if from a homestead in a 
hollow of the land. 

I used to watch this smoke, when I was wet and cold, 
and had my head half turned with loneliness ; and think 
of the fireside, and the company, till my heart burned. 
It was the same with the roofs of Iona. Altogether, this 
sight I had of men’s homes and comfortable lives, 
although it put a point on my own sufferings, yet it 
kept hope alive, and helped me to eat my raw shell-fish 
(which had soon grown to be a disgust) and saved me 
from the sense of horror I had whenever I was quite 
alone with dead rocks, and fowls, and the rain, and the 
cold sea. 

I say it kept hope alive ; and indeed it seemed impos- 
sible that I should be left to die on the shores of my 
own country, and within view of a church tower and 
the smoke of men’s houses. But the second day passed ; 
and though as long as the light lasted I kept a bright 
look-out for boats on the Sound or men passing on the 
Ross, no help came near me. It still rained; and I 
turned in to sleep, as wet as ever and with a cruel sore 
throat, but a little comforted, perhaps, by having said 
good night to my next neighbors, the people of Iona. 

Charles the Second declared a man could stay outdoors 
more days in the year in the climate of England than 
in any other. This was very like a king with a palace 


THE ISLET 


147 

I / // 

at his back and changes of dry clothes. But he must 
have had better luck on his flight from Worcester 1 than 
I had on that miserable isle. It was the height of sum- 
mer; yet it rained for more than twenty-four hours, and 
did not clear until the afternoon of the third day. 

This was the day of incidents. In the morning I 
saw a red deer, a buck with a fine spread of antlers, 
standing in the rain on the top of the island; but he 
had scarce seen me rise from under my rock, before he 
trotted off upon the other side. I supposed he must have 
swum the strait ; though what should bring any creature 
to Earraid, was more than I could fancy. 

A little after, as I was jumping about after my 
limpets, I was startled by a guinea piece, which fell 
upon a rock in front of me and glanced off into the sea. 
When the sailors gave me my money again, they kept 
back not only about a third of the whole sum, but my 
father’s leather purse; so that from that day out, I 
carried my gold loose in a pocket with a button. I 
now saw there must be a hole, and clapped my hand to 
the place in a great hurry. But this was to lock the 
stable door after the steed was stolen. I had left the 
shore at Queensferry with near on fifty pounds; now 
I found no more than two guinea pieces and a silver 
shilling. 

It is true I picked up a third guinea a little after, 
where it lay shining on a piece of turf. That made a 
fortune of three pounds and four shillings, English 
money, for a lad, the rightful heir of an estate, and now 
starving on an isle at the extreme end of the wild 
Highlands. 

This state of my affairs dashed me still further; and 
1. On his flight from Worcester. On September 3, 1651. Prince 
Charles, afterwards Charles II. crossing the border into England at the 
head of an invading army of Scots, was met and defeated by Cromwell 
at Worcester. After the battle he barely escaped, and wandered about 
for many days in peril of his life. 


f 


148 


KIDNAPPED 


indeed my plight on that third morning was truly pitiful. 
My clothes were beginning to rot ; my stockings in par- 
ticular were quite worn through, so that my shanks went 
naked; my hands had grown quite soft with the con- 
tinual soaking; my throat was very sore, my strength 
had much abated, and my heart so turned against the 
horrid stuff I was condemned to eat, that the very sight 
of it came near to sicken me. 

And yet the worst was not yet come. 

There is a pretty high rock on the north-west of 
Earraid, which (because it had a flat top and overlooked 
the Sound) I was much in the habit of frequenting; 
not that ever I stayed in one place, save when asleep, 
my misery giving me no rest. Indeed, I wore myself 
down with continual and aimless goings and comings in 
the rain. 

As soon, however, as the sun came out, I lay down 
on the top of that rock to dry myself. The comfort of 
the sunshine is a thing I cannot tell. It set me thinking 
hopefully of my deliverance, of which I had begun to 
despair; and I scanned the sea and the Ross with a fresh 
interest. On the south of my rock, a part of the island 
jutted out and hid the open ocean, so that a boat could 
thus come quite near me upon that side, and I be none 
the wiser. 

Well, all of a sudden, a coble with a brown sail and 
a pair of fishers aboard of it, came flying round that 
corner of the isle, bound for Iona. I shouted out, and 
then fell on my knees on the rock and reached up my 
hands and prayed to them. They were near enough to 
hear — I could even see the color of their hair ; and 
there was no doubt but they observed me, for they cried 
out in the Gaelic tongue and laughed. But the boat 
never turned aside, and flew on, right before my eyes, 
for Iona. 


THE ISLET 


149 


I could not believe such wickedness, and ran along the 
shore from rock to rock, crying on them piteously ; even 
after they were out of reach of my voice, I still cried 
and waved to them ; and when they were quite gone, I 
thought my heart would have burst. All the time of 
my troubles, I wept only twice. Once, when I cpuld not 
reach the yard; and now, the second time, when these 
fishers turned a deaf ear to my cries. But this time I 
wept and roared like a wicked child, tearing up the turf 
with my nails and grinding my face in the earth. If a 
wish would kill men, those two fishers would never have 
seen morning; and I should likely have died upon my 
island. 

When I was a little over my anger, I must eat again, 
but with such loathing of the mess as I could now scarcely 
control. Sure enough, I should have done as well to 
fast, for my fishes poisoned me again. I had all my first 
pains ; my throat was so sore I could scarce swallow ; 
I had a fit of strong shuddering, which clucked my teeth 
together; and there came on me that dreadful sense of 
illness, which we have no name for either in Scotch or 
English. I thought I should have died, and made my 
peace with God, forgiving all men, even my uncle and 
the fishers ; and as soon as I had thus made up my mind 
to the worst, clearness came upon me: I observed the 
night was falling dry; my clothes were dried a good 
deal; truly,. I was in a better case than ever before, 
since I had landed on the isle; and so I got to sleep 
at last, with a thought of gratitude. 

The next day (which was the fourth of this horrible 
life of mine) I found my bodily strength run very low. 
But the sun shone, the air was sweet, and what I managed 
to eat of the shell-fish agreed well with me and revived 
my courage. 

I was scarce back on my rock (where I went always 


150 


KIDNAPPED 


the first thing after I had eaten) before I observed a 
boat coining down the Soumd and \ with her head, as I 
thought, in my direction. 

I began at once to hope and fear exceedingly; for I 
thought these men might have thought better of their 
cruelty and be coming back to my assistance. But 
another disappointment, such as yesterday’s, was more 
than I could bear. I turned my back, according^, upon 
the sea, and did not look again till I had counted many 
hundreds. The boat was still heading for the island. 
The next time I counted the full thousand, as slowly 
as I could, my heart beating so as to hurt me. And then 
it was out of all question. She was coming straight to 
Earraid ! 

I could no longer hold myself back, but ran to the 
seaside and out, from one rock to another, as far as I 
could go. It is a marvel I was not drowned; for when 
I was brought to a stand at last, my legs shook under 
me, and my mouth was so dry, I must wet it with the 
sea-water before I was able to shout. 

All this time the boat was coming on ; and now I 
was able to perceive it was the same boat and the same ; 
two men as yesterday. This I knew by their hair, which 
the one had of a bright yellow and the other black. But 
now there was a third man along with them, who looked 
to be of a better class. 

As soon as they were come within easy speech, they , 
let down their sail and lay quiet. In spite of my suppli- ■ 
cations, they drew no nearer in, and what frightened me 
most of all, the new man tee-hee’d with laughter as he 
talked and looked at me. 

Then he stood up in the boat and addressed me a 
long while, speaking fast and with many wavings of his 
hand. I told him I had no Gaelic ; and at this he became 
very angry, and I began to suspect he thought he was 


THE ISLET 


lb'l 


talking English. Listening very close, I caught the 

* word “whateffer” several times; but all the rest was 
Gaelic, and might have been Greek and Hebrew for me. 

“Whatever,” said I, to show him I had caught a word. 

“Yes, yes — yes, yes,” says he, and then he looked at 
the other men, as much as to say, “I told you I spoke 
■ English,” and began, again as hard as ever in the Gaelic. 

This time I picked out another word, “tide.” Then I 
| had a flash of hope. I remembered he was always waving 

• his hand toward the main land of the Ross. 

“Do you mean when the tide is out ?” I cried, 

and could not finish. 

“Yes, yes,” said he. “Tide.” 

At that I turned tail upon their boat (where my 
[ adviser had once more begun to tee-hee with laughter), 
1 leaped back the way I had come, from one stone to 
I t another, and set off* running across the isle as I had 
never run before. In about half an hour I came out 
upon the shores of the creek ; and, sure enough, it was 
jj, shrunk into a little trickle of water, through which I 
dashed, not above my knees, and landed with a shout 
oY the main island. 

A sea-bred boy would not have stayed a day on 
Earraid ; which is only what they call a tidal islet, and 
except in the bottom of the neaps , 1 can be entered and 
left twice in every twenty-four hours, either dry-shod, 
or at the most by wading. Even J, ,who had the tide 
going out and in before me in the bay, and even watched 
for the ebbs, the better to get my shell-fish — even I 
(I say), if I had sat down to think, instead of raging 
at my fate, must have soon guessed the secret and got 
free. It was no wonder the fishers had not understood 
me. The wonder was rather that they had ever guessed 

1. Bottom of the neaps. The neap tides are the lowest of the 
lunar month. The “bottom of the neaps” occurs just before the full 
moon, and is the deepest of all the neap tides. 


152 


KIDNAPPED 


my pitiful illusion, and taken the trouble to come back.^ 
I had starved with cold and hunger 1 on that island for 
close upon one hundred hours. But for the fishers, I 
might have left my bones there, in pure folly. And 
even as it was, I had paid for it pretty dear, not only 
in past sufferings, but in my present case; being clothed 
like a beggar-man, scarce able to walk, and in great 
pain of my sore throat. 

I have seen wicked men and fools, a great many of 
both ; and I believe they both get paid in the end ; but 
the fools first. 

1. Starved xoith cold and hunger. The old meaning of “starve” is 
“die” ; compare the German word, “sterben.” 


CHAPTER XV i 

THE LAD WITH THE SILVER BUTTON I THROUGH THE ISLE 
* OF MULL 

The Ross of Mull, which I had now got upon, was 
rugged and trackless, like the isle I had just left; being 
all bog, and briar, and big stone. There may be roads 
for them that know that country well; but for my part 
I had no better guide than my own nose, and no other 
landmark than Ben More . 1 

I aimed as well as I could for the smoke I had seen 
| so often from the island; and with all my great weari- 
ness and the difficulty of the way, came upon the house 
' at the bottom of a little hollow, about five or six at night. 
It was low and longish, roofed with turf and built of 
unmortared stones; and on a mound in front of it, an 
old gentleman sat smoking his pipe in the sun. 

With what little English he had, he gave me to 
understand that my shipmates had got safe ashore, and 
had broken bread in that very house on the day after. 

“Was there one,” I asked, “dressed like a gentle- 
man ?” 

He said they all wore rdugh great-coats; but to be 
sure the first of them, the one that came alone, wore 
breeches and stockings, while the rest had sailors’ 
trousers. 

“Ah,” said I, “and he would have a feathered hat?” 

He told me no, that he was bare-headed like myself. 

At first I thought Alan might have lost his hat; and- 
then the rain came in my mind, and I judged it more 
likely he had it out of harm’s way under his great- 

1. Ben More. “Ben” means “mountain.” 

153 


15 i 


KIDNAPPED 


coat. This set me smiling, partly because my friend 
was safe, partly to think of his vanity in dress. 

And tlien the old gentleman clapped his hand to 
his brow, and cried out that I must be the lad with the 
silver button. 

“Why, yes,” said I, in some wonder. 

“Well, then,” said the old gentleman, “I have a word 
for you that you are to follow your friend to his 
country, by Torosay.” 

He then asked me how I had fared, and I told him 
my tale. A south-country man would certainly have 
laughed; but this old gentleman (I call him so because 
of his manners, for his clothes were dropping off his 
back) heard me all through with nothing but gravity 
and pity. When I had done, he took me by the hand, 
led me into his hut (it was no better) and presented 
me before his wife, as if she had been the Queen and I 
a duke. 

The good woman set oat-bread before me and a cold i 
grouse, patting my shoulder and smiling to me all the 
time, for she had no English; and the old gentleman 
(not to be behind) brewed me a strong punch out of ! 
their country spirit. All the while I was eating, and 
after that when I was drinking the punch, I could 
scarce come to believe in my good fortune; and the 
house, though it was thick with the peat-smoke and as 
full of holes as a colander, seemed like a palace. 

The punch threw me in a strong sweat and a deep j 
slumber; the good people let me lie; and it was near j 
noon of the next day before I took the road, my, throat 
already easier and my spirits quite restored by good fare 
and good news. The old gentleman, although I pressed j 
him hard, would take no money, and gave me an old I 
bonnet for my head; though I am free to own I was 
no sooner out of view of the house than I very jealously 
washed this gift of his in a wayside fountain. 


THROUGH THE ISLE OF MULL 


155 


Thought I to myself : “If these are the wild High- 
landers I could wish my own folk wilder.” 

I not only started late, but I must have wandered ' 
nearly half the time.- True, I met plenty of people, 
grubbing in little miserable fields that would not keep 
a cat, or herding little kine about the bigness of asses. 
The Highland dress being forbidden by law since the 
rebellion, and the people condemned to the lowland 
habit, which they much disliked, it was strange to see 
the variety of their array. Some went bare, only for 
a hanging cloak or great-coat, and carried their 
trousers on their backs like a useless burthen ; some 
had made an imitation of the tartan with little, .parti- 
colored stripes patched together like an old wife’s 
quilt; others, again, still wore the Highland philabeg , 1 
but by putting a few stitches between the legs, trans- 
formed it into a pair of trousers like a Dutchman’s. 
All those makeshifts were condemned and punished, for 
the law was harshly applied, in hopes to break up the 
clan spirit ; but in that out-of-the-way, • seabound isle, 
there were few r to make remarks and fewer to tell tales. 

They seemed in great poverty: which was no doubt 
natural, now the rapine was put down, and the chiefs 
kept no longer an open house; and the roads (even 
such a wandering, country by-track As the one I fol- 
lowed) were infested with beggars. And here, again, 

I marked a difference from my own part of the country. 
For our lowland beggars — even the gowmsmen them- 
selves, who beg by patent 2 — had a louting, flattering 
way wdth them, and if you gave them a plack 3 and 

1. Philabeg. Kilt. 

2. The gownsmen themselves, who beg by patent. A “gowns- 
man” was a licensed beggar who received on the king’s birthday certain 
alms, including a blue gown to be worn as a badge. “One of that 
privileged class which are called in Scotland the King’s Bedesmen, or, 
vulgarly, ‘Bluegowns.’ ” — Sir Walter Scott. 

3. Plack. An old Scotch coin .worth about one-half a cent. 


156 


KIDNAPPED 


asked change, would very civilly return you a boddle. 
But these Highland beggars stood on their dignity, 
asked alms only to buy snuff (by their account) and 
would give no change. 

To be sure this was no concern of mine, except in 
so far as it entertained me by the way. What w T as 
much more to the purpose, few had any English, and 
these few (unless they were of the brotherhood of 
beggars) not very anxious to place it at my service. 
I knew Torosay to be my destination, and repeated 
the name to them and pointed; but instead of simply 
pointing in reply, they w r ould give me a screed of the 
Gaelic that set me foolish; so it was small wonder if 
I went out of my road as often as I stayed in it. 

At last, about eight at night, and already very weary, 
I came to a lone house, where I asked admittance and 
was refused, until I bethought me of the power of 
money in so poor a country, and held up one of my 
guineas in my finger and thumb. Thereupon, the man 
of the house, who had hitherto pretended to have no 
English and driven me from his door by signals, 
suddenly began to speak as clearly as was needful, 
and agreed for five shillings to give me a night’s 
lodging and guide me the next day to Torosay. 

I slept uneasily that night, fearing I should be 
robbed; but I might have spared myself the pain; for 
my host w^as no robber, only miserably poor and a 
great cheat. He was not alone in his poverty; for 
the next morning, we must go five miles about to the 
house of w T hat he called a rich man to have one of 
my guineas changed. This w T as perhaps a rich man 
for Mull; he would have scarce been thought so in 
the south; for it took all he had, the w T hole house was 
turned upside down, and a neighbor brought under 
contribution, before he could scrape together twenty 


THROUGH THE ISLE OF MULL 


157 


shillings in silver. The odd shilling 1 he kept for him- 
self, protesting he could ill afford to have so great a 
sum of money lying “locked up.” For all that he 
was very courteous and well spoken, made us both sit 
down with his family to dinner, and brewed punch in 
a fine china bowl ; over which my rascal guide grew 
so merry that he refused to start. 

I was for getting angry, and appealed to the rich 
man (Hector Maclean was his name) who had been a 
witness to our bargain and to my payment of the five 
shillings. But Maclean had taken his share of the 
punch, and vowed that no gentleman should leave his 
table after the bowl was brewed; so there was nothing 
for it but to sit and hear Jacobite toasts and Gaelic 
songs, till all were tipsy and staggered off to the bed 
or the barn for their night’s rest. 

Next day (the fourth of my travels) we were up 
before five upon the clock, but my rascal guide got 
to the bottle at once; and it was three hours before I 
had him clear of the house, and then (as you shall hear) 
only for a worse disappointment. 

As long as we went down a heathery valley that lay 
before Mr. Maclean’s house, all went well; only my 
guide looked constantly over his shoulder, and when I 
asked him the cause, only grinned at me. No sooner, 
however, had we crossed the back of a hill, and got out 
of sight of the back windows, than he told me Torosay 
lay right in front, and that hill-top (which he pointed 
out) was my best landmark. 

“I care very little for that,” said I, “since you are 
going with me.” 

The impudent cheat answered me in the Gaelic that 
he had no English. 

“My fine fellow,” I said, “I know very well your 

1. The odd shilling. There are twenty-one shillings in a guinea. 


158 


KIDNAPPED 


English comes and goes. Tell me what will bring ill 
back? Is it more money you wish? 5 ’ 

“Five shillings mair,” said he, “and hersel’ will bring 
ye there.” 

I reflected a while and then offered him two, which 
he accepted greedily, and insisted on having in his 
hands at once — “for luck,” as he said, but I think it 
was rather for my misfortune. 

The two shillings carried him not quite as many 
miles; at the end of which distance, he sat down upon 
the wayside and took off his brogues from his feet, like 
a man about to rest. 

I was now red-hot. “Ha !” said I, “have you no 
more English.?” 

He said, im udently, “No.” 

At that I boiled over and lifted my hand to strike 
him; and he, drawing a knife from his rags, squatted 
back and grinned at me like a wild-cat. At that, for- 
getting everything but my anger, I ran in upon him, 
put aside his knife with my left and struck him in thf 
mouth with my right. I was a strong lad and very 
angry, and he but a little man; and he went dowi 
before me heavily. By good luck, his knife flew ou 
of his hand as he fell. 

I picked up both that and his brogues,, wished him 
a good morning, and set off upon my way, leaving 
him barefoot and disarmed. I chuckled to myself as 
I went, being sure I was done with that rogue, for a 
variety of reasons. First, he knew he could have no 
more of my money; next, the brogues were worth in 
that country only a few pence; and lastly, the knife, 
which was really a dagger, it was against the law for 
him to carry. 

In about half-an-hour of walk, I overtook a great 
ragged man, moving pretty fast but feeling before 
him with a staff. He was quite blind, and told me he 


THROUGH THE ISLE OF MULL 


159 


was a catechist , 1 which should have put me at niy ease. 
But his face went against me; it seemed dark and 
dangerous and secret; and presently, as we began to 
f go on alongside, I saw the steel butt of a pistol stick- 
ing from under the flap of his coat-pocket. To 
carry such a thing meant a fine of fifteen pounds 
[ sterling upon a first offence, and transportation to the 
| colonies upon a second. Nor could I quite see why a 
[ religious teacher should go armed, or what a blind 
i man could be doing with a pistol. 

I told him about my guide, for I was proud of what 
I had done, and my vanity for once got the heels of 
my prudence. At the mention of the five shillings 
he cried out so loud that I made up mv mind I should 
say nothing of the other two, and w -glad he could 
p not see my* blushes. 

“Was it too much?” I asked a little faltering. 

“Too much !” cries he. “Why, I will guide you to 
- Torosay myself for a dram of brandy. And give you 
-the great pleasure of my company (me that is a man 
7of some learning) in the bargain.” 
n I said I did not see how a blind man could be a guide ; 
ibut at that he laughed aloud, and said his stick was 
eyes enough for an eagle. 

“In the Isle of Mull, at least,” says he, “where I 
know every stone and heatherbush by mark of head. 
See, now,” he said, striking right and left, as if to 
make sure, “down there a burn is running; and at the 
head of it there stands a bit of a small hill with a 
stone cocked upon the top of that; and it’s hard at 
the foot of the hill, that the way runs by to Torosay; 
and the way here, being for droves, is plainly trodden, 

and will show grassy through the heather.” 

.1. 

1. Catechist. One who teaches converts by means of question and 


answer. 


160 


KIDNAPPED 


I had to own he was right in every feature, and 
told my wonder. 

“Ha!” says he, “that’s nothing. Would ye believe 
me now, that before the Act 1 came out, and when 
there were weepons in this country, I could shoot? Ay, 
could I !” cries he, and then with a leer : “If ye had 
such a thing as a pistol here to try with, I w^ould 
show ye how it’s done.” 

I told him that I had nothing of that sort, and gave 
him a wider berth. If he had known, his pistol stuck 
at that time quite plainly out of *his pocket, and I 
could see the sun twinkle on the steel of the butt. But 
by the better luck for me, he knew nothing, thought 
all was covered, and lied on in the dark. 

He then began to question me cunningly, where I 
came from, whether I was rich, whether I could change 
a five shilling piece for him (winch he declared he 
had at that moment in his sporran 2 ), and all the. time j 
he kept edging up to me, and I avoiding him. We 
were now upon a sort of green cattle-track, which j 
crossed the hills toward Torosay, and we kept chang-1 
ing sides upon that like dancers in a reel. I had so- 
plainly the upper hand that my spirits rose, and, 
indeed I took a pleasure in this game of blind-man’s- n 
buff ; but the catechist grew" angrier and angrier, and 
at last began to sw T ear in Gaelic and to strike for my 
legs with his staff. 

Then I told him that sure enough I had a pistol in 
my pocket as well as he, and if he did not strike across 
the hill due south I would even blow his brains out. 

He became at once very polite ; and after trying to 
soften me for some time, but quite in vain, he cursed j 

me once more in Gaelic and took himself off. I 

• 

1. The Act. See Historical Note, Introduction, page 27. 

2. Sporran. A large leather pouch, or purse, worn suspended in 

front. 


THROUGH THE ISLE OF MULL 


161 


watched him striding along, through bog and briar, 
tapping with his stick, until he turned the end of a 
hill and disappeared in the next hollow. Then I struck 
i on, again for Torosay, much better pleased to be alone 
than to travel with that man of learning. This was 
an unlucky day ; and these two, of whom I had just 
rid myself, one after the other, were the two worst men 
I met with in the Highlands. 

At Torosay, on the Sound of Mull, and looking over 
to the main land of Morven, there was an inn with 
i an innkeeper, who was a Maclean, it appeared, of a 
very high family; for to keep an inn is thought ever 
; more genteel in the Highlands than it is with us, 

' perhaps as partaking of hospitality, or perhaps be- 
cause the trade is idle and drunken. He spoke good 
j English, and finding me to be something of a scholar, 
tried me first in French, where he easily beat me, and 
then in La ( tin, in which I don’t know which of us did 
best. This pleasant rivalry put us at once upon 
friendly terms; and I sat up and drank punch with him 
(or, to be more correct, sat up and watched him 
drink it) until he was so tipsy that he wept upon my 
shoulder. 

I tried him, as if by accident, with a sight of Alan’s 
button ; but it was plain he had never seen or heard 
of it. Indeed, he bore some grudge against the family 
and friends of Ardshiel, and before he was drunk he 
read me a lampoon, in ver}' good Latin, but with a 
very ill meaning, which he had made in elegiac verses 
upon a person of that house. 

When I told him of my catechist, he shook his head, 
and said I was lucky to have got clear off. “That is 
a very dangerous man,” he said; “Duncan Mackiegh 
is his name ; he can shoot by the ear at several yards, 
and has been often accused of highway robberies, and 
once of murder.” 


162 


KIDNAPPED 


“The cream of it is,” says I, “that he called him- 
self a catechist.” 

“And why should he not?” says he, “when that is 
what he is? It was Maclean of Duart gave it to him 
because he was blind. But, perhaps, it was a peety,” 
says my host, “for he is always on the road, going 
from one place to another" to hear the young folk say 
their religion; and doubtless, that is a great tempta- 
tion to the poor man.” 

At last, when my landlord could drink no more, he 
showed me to a bed, and I lay down in very good spirits ; 
having traveled the greater part of that big and crooked 
Island of Mull, from Earraid to Torosay, fifty miles 
as the crow flies, and (with my wanderings) much 
nearer a hundred, in four days and w T ith little fatigue. 
Indeed, I was bv far in better heart and health of body 
at The end of that long tramp than I had been at the 
beginning. 


CHAPTER XVI 

THE LAD WITH THE SILVER BUTTON: ACROSS MORVEN 

There is a regular ferry from Torosay to Kin- 
lochaline on the mainland. Both shores of the Sound 
are in the country of the strong clan of the Macleans, 
and the people that passed the ferry with me were 
almost all of that clan. The skipper of the boat, on 
the other hand, was called Neil Roy Macrob ; and 
since Macrob was one of the names of Alan’s clans- 
* men, and Alan himself had sent me to that ferry, I 
j| was eager to come to private speech of Neil Roy. 

In the crowded boat this was of course impossible, 
and the passage was a very slow affair.. There was 
no wind, and as the boat was wretchedly equipped, we 
could pull but two oars on one side, and one on the 
other. The men gave way, however, with a good will, 
the passengers taking spells to help them, and the 
whole company giving the time in Gaelic boat-songs. 
And what with the songs, and the sea air, and the good 
nature and spirit of all concerned, and the bright 
weather, the passage was a pretty thing to have seen. 

But there was one melancholy part. ‘In the mouth 
of Loch Aline we found a great sea-going ship at 
anchor; and this I supposed at first to be one of the 
King’s cruisers which were kept along that coast, both 
summer and winter, to prevent communication with the 
French. As we got a little nearer, it became plain she 
was a ship of merchandise'; and what still more puzzled 
me, not only her decks, but the sea-beach also, were 

163 


164 


KIDNAPPED 


quite black with people, and skiffs were continually 
plying to and fro between them. Yet nearer, and 
there began to come to our ears a great sound of 
mourning, the people on board and those on the shore 
crying and lamenting one to another so as to pierce 
the heart. 

Then I understood this was an emigrant ship bound 
for the American colonies. 

We put the ferry-boat alongside, and the exiles 
leaned over the bulwarks, weeping and reaching out 
their hands to my fellow-passengers, among whom they 
counted some near friends. How r long this might have 
gone on I do not know, for they seemed to have no 
sense of time : but at last the captain of the ship, who 
seemed near beside himself (and no great wonder) in 
the midst of this crying and confusion, came to the 
side and begged us to depart. 

Thereupon Neil sheered off ; and the chief singer in 
our boat struck into a melancholy air, which was pres- 
ently taken up both by the emigrants and their friends 
upon the beach, so that it sounded from all sides like 
a lament for the dying. I saw the tears run down the 
cheeks of the men and w omen in the boat, even as they 
bent at their oars ; and the circumstances, and the music 
of the song (which is one called “Lochaber no more”) 
were highly affecting even to myself. 

At Ivinlochaline I got Neil Roy upon one side on 
the beach, and said I made sure he w r as one of Appin’s 
men. 

“And what for no?” said he. 

“I am seeking somebody,” said I ; “and it comes 
in my mind that you will have new T s of him. Alan 
Breck Stew r art is his name.” And very foolishly, instead 
of showing him the button, I sought to pass a shilling 
in his hand. 

At this he drew r back. “I am very much affronted,” 


ACROSS MORVRN 


165 


he said; “and this is not the way that one shentleman 
should behave to another at all. The man vou ask 
for is in France; but if he was in my sporran,” says 
he, “and your belly full of shillings, I would not hurt 
a hair upon his body,” 

I saw I had gone the wrong way to work, and without 
wasting time upon apologies, showed him the button 
tying in the hollow of my palm. 

“Aweel, aweel,” said Neil ; “and I think ye might 
have begun with that end of the stick, whatever! But 
if ye are the lad with the silver button, all is well, and 
I have the word to see that ye come safe. But if ye 
will pardon me to speak plainly,” says he, “there is a 
name that you should never take into your mouth, and 
that is the name of Alan Breck ; and there is a thing 
that ye would never do, and that is to offer your dirtv 
money to a Hieland shentleman.” 

It was not very easy to apologize; for I could scarce 
tell him (what was the truth) that I had never dreamed 
he would set up to be a gentleman until he told me so. 
Neil on his part had no wish to prolong his dealings 
with me, only to fulfil his orders and be done with it; 
and he made haste to give me my route. This was to 
lie the night in Kinlochaline in the public inn ; to cross 
Morven the next day to Ardgour, and lie the night in 
the house of one John of the Claymore, who was warned 
that I might come ; the third day to be set across one 
loch at Corran and another at Balachulish, and then 
ask my way to the house of James of the Glens, at 
Aucharn, in Duror of Appin. There was a good deal 
of ferrying as you hear; the sea in all this part running 
deep into the mountains and winding about their roots. 
It makes the country strong to hold and difficult to 
travel, but full of prodigious wild and dreadful pros- 
pects. 

I had some other advice from Neil; to speak with no 


166 


KIDNAPPED 


one by the way, to avoid Whigs, Campbells, arid the 
“red soldiers;” to leave the road and lie in a bush, if 
I saw any of the latter coming, “for it was never chancy 1 
to meet in with them and, in brief, to conduct myself 
like a robber or a Jacobite agent, as perhaps Neil 
thought me. 

The inn at Kinlochaline was the most beggarly, vile 
place that ever pigs were styed in, full of smoke, 
vermin, and silent Highlanders. I was not only dis- 
contented with my lodging, but with myself for my 
mismanagement of Neil, and thought I could hardly 
be worse off. But very wrongly, as I was soon to see; 
for I had not been half-an-hour at the inn (standing 
at the door most of the time, to ease my eyes from 
the peat-smoke) when a thunderstorm came close by, 
the springs broke in a little hill on which the inn stood, 
and one end of the house became a running water. 
Places of public entertainment were bad enough all 
over Scotland in those days; yet it was a wonder to 
myself, when I had to go from the fireside to the bed 
in which I slept, wading over the shoes. 

Early in my next day’s journey, I overtook a little, 
stout, solemn man, walking very slowly with his toes 
turned out, sometimes reading in a book and sometimes 
marking the place with his finger, and dressed decently 
and plainly in something of a clerical style. 

This I found to be another catechist, but of a dif- 
ferent order from the blind man of Mull: being indeed 
one of those sent out by the Edinburgh Society for 
Propagating Christian Knowledge, to evangelize the 
more savage places of the Highlands. His name was 
Henderland ; he spoke with the broad south-country 
tongue, which I was beginning to weary for the sound 
of ; and besides common countryship, we soon found 
we had a more particular bond of interest. For my 
1. Chancy. Safe. 


ACROSS MORVEN 


167 


good friend, the minister of Essendean, had translated 
into the Gaelic in his by-time a number of hymns and 
pious books, which Henderland used in his work and 
held in great esteem. Indeed it was one of these he 
was carrying and reading when we met. 

We fell in company at once, our ways lying together 
as far as Ivingairloch. As we went, he stopped and 
spoke with all the wayfarers and workers that we met 
or passed; and though of course I could not tell what 
they discoursed about, yet I judged Mr. Henderland 
must be well liked in the countryside, for I observed 
many of them to bring out their mulls 1 and share a 
pinch of snuff with him. 

I told him as far in my affairs as I judged wise: as 
far, that is, afc they were none of Alan’s; and gave 
fealachulish as the place I was traveling to, to meet a 
friend; for I thought Aucharn, or even Duror, would 
be too particular and might put him on the scent. 

On his part he told me much of his work and the 
people he worked among, the hiding priests and Jacob- 
ites, the Disarming Act, the dress, and many other 
curiosities of the time and place. He seemed moderate : « 
blaming Parliament in several points, and especially 
because they had framed the Act more severely against 
those who wore the dress than against those who car- 
ried weapons. 

This moderation put in my mind to question him 
of the Red Fox and the Appin tenants: questions 
which, I thought, would seem natural enough in the 
mouth of one traveling to that country. 

He said it was a bad business. “It’s wonderful,” 
said he, “where the tenants find the money, for their life 
is mere starvation. (Ye don’t carry such a thing as 
snuff, do ye, Mr. Balfour? No. Well, I’m better 
wanting it.) But these tenants (as I was saying) are 
1. Mulls. Snuff-boxes made of horn. 


168 


KIDNAPPED 


doubtless partly driven to it. James Stewart in Duror 
(that’s him they call James of the Glens) is half- 
brother to Ardshiel, the captain of the clan ; and he 
is a man much looked up to, and drives very hard. 
And then there’s one they call Alan Breck ” 

“Ah!” cried I, “what of him?” 

“What of the wind that bloweth where it listeth?” 
said Henderland. “He’s here and awa ; here today and 
gone tomorrow: a fair heather-cat. He might be 
glowering at the two of us out of yon whin-bush , 1 
and I wouldnae wonder! Ye’ll no carry such a thing 
as snuff, will ye?” 

I told him no, and that he had asked me the same 
thing more than once. 

“It’s highly possible,” said he, sighing. “But it 
seems strange ye shouldnae carry it. However, as I 
was saying, this Alan Breck is a bold, desperate cus- 
tomer, and well kent to be James’ right hand. His life 
is forfeit already; he would boggle 2 at naething; and 
maybe, if a tenant-body was to hang back, he would 
get a dirk in his wame .” 3 

“You make a poor story of it all, Mr. Henderland,” 
said I. “If it is all fear upon both sides, I care to 
hear no more of it.” 

“Na,” said Mr. Henderland, “but there’s love, too, 
and self-denial that should put the like of you and me 
to shame. There’s something fine about it; no perhap 
Christian, but humanly fine. Even Alan Breck, by all 
thht I hear, is a chield 4 to be respected. There’s many 
a lying sneck-draw 5 sits close in kirk in our own part 
of the country, and stands well in the world’s eye, and 
maybe is a far worse man, Mr. Balfour, than yon mis- 

1. Whin-bush. Furze-bush. 

2. Boggle. Hesitate. 

3. A dirk in his wame. A dagger in his belly. 

4. Chield. Fellow. 

5. Sneclc-draw. A crafty person. 


ACROSS MORVER 


169 


guided shedder of man’s blood. Ay, ay, we might 
take a lesson by them. — Ye’ll perhaps think I’ve been 
too long in the Hielands?” he added, smiling to me. 

I told him not at all ; that I had seen much to 
admire among the Highlanders ; and if he came to that, 
Mr. Campbell himself was a Highlander. 

“Ay,” said he, “that’s true. It’s a fine blood.” 

“And what is the King’s agent about?” I asked. 

“Colin Campbell?” says Henderland. “Putting his 
head in a bees’ byke !” 1 

“He is to turn the tenants out by force, I hear?” 
said I. 

“Yes,” says he, “but the business has gone back and 
forth, as folk say. First, James of the Glens rode to 
Edinburgh and got some lawyer (a Stewart, nae doubt 
— they all hing together like bats in a steeple) and 
had the proceedings stayed. And then Colin Campbell 
cam’ in again, and had the upper hand before the 
Barons of Exchequer . 2 And now they tell me the 
first of the tenants are to flit tomorrow. It’s to begin 
at Duror under James’ very windows, which doesnae 
seem wise by my humble way of it.” 

“Do you think they’ll fight?” I asked. 

“Well,” says Henderland, “they’re disarmed- — or sup- 
posed to be — for there’s still a good deal of cold iron 
lying by in quiet places. And then Colin Campbell 
has the sogers coming. But for all that, if I was his 
lady wife, I wouldnae be well pleased till I got him home 
again. They’re queer customers, the Appin Stewarts.” 

I asked if they were worse than their neighbors. 

1. Bees’ tyke. A wild bees’ nest. 

2. Barons of Exchequer. The judges of the Court of Exchequer 
(abolished as a separate court' in 1873). The judges derived their 
title from the fact that in ancient times they were selected from the 
barons of the kingdom. Though the Court of Exchequer originally 
dealt with matters relating to the royal revenues, it acquired the 
power to hear all personal suits. 


170 


KIDNAPPED 


“No they,” said he. “And that’s the worst part of 
it. For if Colin Roy can get his business done in 
Appin, he has it all to begin again in the next country, 
which they call Mamore, and which is one of the 
countries of the Camerons. He’s King’s factor upon 
both, and from both he has to drive out the tenants; 
and indeed, Mr. Balfour (to be open with ye), it’s my 
belief that if he escapes the one lot, he’ll get his death 
by the other.” 

So we continued talking and walking the great part 
of the day ; until at last, Mr. Henderland, after 
expressing his delight in my company, and satisfaction 
at meeting with a friend of Mr. Campbell’s (“whom,” 
says he, “I will make bold to call that sweet singer of 
our covenanted Zion ”), 1 proposed that I should make 
a short stage, and lie the night in his house a little 
beyond Kingairloch. To say truth, I was overjoyed; 
for I had no great desire for John of the Claymore, 
and since my double misadventure, first with the guide 
and next with the gentleman skipper, I stood in some 
fear of any Highland stranger. Accordingly, we shook 
hands upon the bargain, and came in the afternoon to 
a small house, standing alone by the shore of the 
Linnhe Loch. The sun was already gone from the 
desert mountains of Ardgour upon the hither side, but 
shone on those of Appin on the farther; the loch lay 
as still as a lake, only the gulls were crying round the 
sides of it ; and the whole place seemed solemn and 
uncouth. 

We had no sooner come to the door of Mr. Hendcr- 

1. Sweet singer of our covenanted Zion. Zion, the name of a 
hill in Jerusalem on which David, the Hebrew king and psalmist, some- 
times called the sweet singer in Israel, had his royal residence, is 
frequently used to mean also the Church of Christ. The Hebrews were 
called "a covenanted people” because of the covenant which God made 
with Abraham. For the use of ‘‘covenanted” in the sense of Presby- 
terian, sq,e note on page 171. 


ACROSS MORVEN 


171 


land’s dwelling, than to my great surprise (for I was 
now used to the politeness of Highlanders) he burst 
rudely past me, dashed into the room, caught up a jar 
and a small horn spoon, and began ladling snuff into 
his nose in most excessive quantities. Then he had a 
hearty fit of sneezing, and looked round upon me with 
a rather silly smile. 

“It’s a vow I took,” says he. “I took a vow upon me 
that I wouldnae carry it. Doubtless it’s a, great priva- 
tion ; but when I think upon the martyrs, not only to 
the Scottish Covenant 1 but to other points of Chris- 
tianity, I think shame to mind it.” 

As soon as we had eaten (and porridge and whey 
was the best of the good man’s diet) he took a grave 
face and said he had a duty to perform by Mr. Camp- 
bell, and that was to inquire into my state of mind 
toward God. I was inclined to smile at him, since the 
business of the snuff ; but he had not spoken long 
before he brought the tears into my eyes. There are 
two things that men should never weary of, goodness 
and humilit}^ ; we get none too much of them in this 
rough world and among cold, proud people ; but Mr. 
Henderland had their very speech upon his tongue. 
And though I was a good deal puffed up with my 
adventures and with having come off, as the saying is, 
with flying colors ; yet he soon had me on my knees 
beside a simple, poor old man, and both proud and 
glad to be there. 

Before we went to bed he offered me sixpence to help 
me on my way, out of a scanty store he kept in the 
turf wall of his house; at which excess of goodness I 

1. Martyrs ... to the Scottish covenant. In resistance to 
forms of worship and church government which Charles I and Arch- 
bishop Laud sought to impose "upon them, the Scotch Presbyterians 
adopted a National Covenant, by which they bound themselves to 
resist all changes in religion. They were severely persecuted during 
the Restoration. 


172 


KIDNAPPED 


knew not what to do. But at last he was so earnest 
with me, that I thought it the more mannerly part to 
let him have his way, and so left him poorer than 
myself. 



\ 


CHAPTER XVII 


THE DEATH OF THE RED FOX 

The next day Mr. Henderland found for me a man 
who had a boat of his own and was to cross the Linnhe 
Loch that afternoon into Appin, fishing. Him he pre- 
vailed on to take me, for he was one of his flock; and 
in this way I saved a long day’s travel and the price 
of the two public ferries I must otherwise have passed. 

It was near noon before we set out; a dark day, with 
clouds, and the sun shining upon little patches. The 
sea was here very deep and . still, and had scarce a 
wave upon it ; so that I must put the water to my lips 
before I could believe it to be truly salt. The moun- 
tains on either side were high, rough, and barren, very 
black and gloomy in the shadow f of the clouds, but all 
silver-laced with little watercourses where the sun shone 
upon them. It seemed a hard country, this of Appin, 
for people to care as much about as Alan did. 

There was but one thing to mention. A little after 
we had started, the sun shone upon a little moving 
clump of scarlet close in along the waterside to the 
north. It was much of the same red as soldiers’ coats; 
every now. and then, too, there came little sparks and 
lightnings, as though the sun had struck upon bright 
steel. 

I asked my boatman what it should be; and he 
answered he supposed it was some of the red soldiers 
coming from Fort William into Appin, against the 
poor tenantry of the country. Well, it ‘ was a sad 
sight to me ; and whether it was because of my thoughts 

© 


174 


KIDNAPPED 


of Alan, or from something prophetic in my bosom, 
although this was but the second time I had seen King 
George’s troops, I had no good will to them. 

At last we came so near the point of land at the 
entering in of Loch Leven that I begged to be set on 
shore. My boatman (who w T as an honest fellow and 
mindful of his promise to the catechist) w r ould fain 
have carried me on to Balachulish ; but as this was to 
take me farther from my secret destination, I insisted, 
and, was set on shore at last under the wood of Letter- 
more (or Lettervore, for I have heard it both ways) 
in Alan’s country of Appin. 

This was a wood of birches, growing on a steep, 
craggy side of a mountain that overhung the loch. It 
had many openings and ferny howes and a road or 
bridle track ran north and south through the midst of 
it, by the edge of which, where was a spring, I sat 
down to eat some oat-bread of Mr. Henderland’s and 
think upon my situation. 

Here I was not only troubled by a cloud of stinging 
midges, but far more by the doubts of my mind. What 
I ought to do, why I w r as going to join myself with an 
outlaw and a would-be murderer ,like Alan, whether I 
should not be acting more like a man of sense to tramp 
back to the south country direct, by my pwn guidance 
and at my own charges, and what Mr. Campbell or 
even Mr. Henderland would think of me if they should 
ever learn my folly and presumption: these were the 
doubts that now began to come in on me stronger than 
ever. 

As I was so sitting and thinking, a sound of men 
and horses came to me through the wood ; and pres- 
ently after, at a turning of the road, I saw four 
tr cvelers come into view. The way was in this part 
so rough and narrow that they came single and led 
IT owes. Hollows. 


THE DEATH OF THE RED FOX 


175 


their horses by the reins. The first was a great, red- 
headed gentleman, of an imperious and flushed face, 
who carried his hat in his hand and fanned himself, for 
he was in a breathing heat. The second, by his decent 
black garb and white wig, I correctly took to be a lawyer. 
The third was a servant, and wore some part of his 
clothes in tartan, which showed that his master was of 
a Highland family, and either an outlaw or else in 
singular good odor with the Government, since the 
wearing of tartan was against the Act. If I had been 
better versed in these things, I would have known the 
tartan to be of the Argyle (or Campbell) colors. This 
servant had a good-sized portmanteau strapped on his 
horse, and a net of lemons (to brew punch with) 
banging at the saddle-bow; as was often enough the 
custom with luxurious travelers in that part of the 
country. 

As for the fourth, who brought up the tail, I had 
seen bis like before, and knew him at once to be a 
sheriff’s officer. 

I had no sooner seen these people coming than I 
made up my mind (for no reason that I can tell) to 
go through w r ith my adventure; and when the first 
came alongside of me, I rose up from the bracken and 
asked him the way to Aucharn. 

He stopped and looked at me, as I thought, a little 
oddly ; and then, turning to the lawyer, “Mungo,” 
said he, “there’s many a man would think this more of 
a warning than two pyats . 1 Here I am on my road 
to Duror on the job ye ken; and here is a young lad 
starts up out of the bracken, and speers 2 if I am on 
the way to Aucharn.” 

“Glenure,” said the other, “this is an ill subject for 
jesting.” 

These two had now drawn close up and were gazing 
1. Pyats. Magpies. 2. Speers. Asks. 


176 


KIDNAPPED 


•at me, while the two followers had halted about a stone- 
cast in the rear. 

“And what seek ye in Aucharn?” said Colin Roy 
Campbell of Glenure ; him they called the Red Fox; 
for he it was that I had stopped. 

“The man that lives there,” said I. 

“James of the Glens?” says Glenure, musingly; and 
then to the lawyer : “Is he gathering his people, 
think ye?” 

“Anyway,” says the lawyer, “we shall do better to 
bide where we are, and let the soldiers rally us .” 1 

“If you are concerned for me,” said I, '“I am neither 
of his people nor yours, but an honest subject of King 
George, ow r ing no man and fearring no man.” 

“Why, very well said,” replies the factor. “But if 
I may make so bold as ask, what does this honest man 
so far from his country? and why does he come seeking 
the brother of Ardshiel? I have power here, I must 
tell you. I am King’s Factor upon several of these 
estates, and have twelve files of soldiers at my back.” 

“I have heard a w r aif word in the country,” said 
I, a little nettled, “that you were a hard man to drive.” 

He still kept looking at me, as if in doubt. 

“Well,” said he, at last, “your tongue is bold; but 
I am no unfriend to plainness. If ye had asked me 
the way to the door of James Stewart on any other 
day but this, I w r ould have set ye right and bidden ye 
God speed. But today — eh, Mungo?” And he turned 
again to look at the lawyer. 

But just as he turned there came a shot of a fire- 
lock from higher up the hill; and with the very sound 
of it Glenure fell upon the road. 

“O, I am dead!” he cried, several times over. 

The lawyer had caught him up and held him in his 
arms, the servant standing over and clasping his hands. 

1. Rally us. Come to our assistance. 


THE DEATH OF THE RED FOX 


177 


And now the wounded man looked from one to another 
with scared eyes, and there was a change in his voice 
that went to the heart. 

“Take care of yourselves,” says he. “I am dead.” 

He tried to open his clothes as if to look for the 
wound, but his fingers slipped on the buttons. With 
that he gave a great sigh, his head rolled on his 
shoulder, and he passed away. 

The lawyer said never a word, but his face was as 
sharp as a pen and as white as the dead man’s; the 
servant broke out into a great noise of crying and 
weeping, like a child ; and I, on my side, stood staring 
at them in a kind of horror. The sheriff’s officer had 
run back at the first sound of the shot, to hasten the 
coming of the soldiers. 

At last the lawyer laid down the dead man in his 
blood upon the road, and got to his own feet with a 
kind of stagger. 

I believe it was his movement that brought me to 
my senses; for he had no sooner done so than I began 
to scramble up the hill, crying out, “The ipurderer ! 
the murderer!” 

So little a time had elapsed, that when I got to the 
top of the first steepness, and could see some part of 
the open mountain, the murderer was still moving away 
at no great distance. He was a big man, in a black 
coat, with metal buttons, and carried a long fowling- 
piece. 

“Here !” I cried. “I see him !” 

At that the murderer gave a little, quick look over 
his shoulder, and be scan to run. The next moment he 
was lost in a fringe of birches; then he came out again 
on the upper side, where I could see him climbing like 
a jackanapes, for that part was again very steep; and 
then he dipped behind a shoulder, and I saw him no 
more. 


178 


KIDNAPPED 


All this time I had been running on my side, and 
had got a good way up, when a voice cried upon me 
to stand. 

I was at the edge of the upper wood, and so now, 
when I halted and looked back, I saw all the open part 
of the hill below me. The lawyer and the sheriff’s 
officer were standing just above the. road, crying and 
waving on me to come back; and on their left, the 
redcoats, musket in hand, were beginning to struggle 
singly out of the lower wood. 

“Why should I come back?” I cried. “Come 
you on !” 

“Ten pounds if ye take that lad !” cried the lawyer. 
“He’s an accomplice. He was posted here to hold us 
in talk.” 

At that word (which I could hear quite plainly, 
though it was to the soldiers and not to me that he was 
crying it) my he ( art'came in my mouth w T ith quite a 
new kind of terror. Indeed, it is one thing to stand 
the danger of your life, and quite another to run the 
peril of Jboth life and character. The thing, besides, 
had come so suddenly, like thunder out of a clear sky, 
that I was all amazed and helpless. 

The soldiers began to spread, some of them to run, 
and others to put up their pieces and cover me; and 
still I stood. 

“Jouk 1 in here among the trees,” said a voice, 
close by. 

Indeed, I scarce knew what I was doing, but I 
obeyed; and as I did so, I heard the firelocks bang and 
the balls whistle in the birches. 

Just inside of the shelter of the trees I found Alan 
Breck standing, with a fishing-rod. He gave me no 
salutation; indeed it was no time for civilities; only 
“Come!” says he, and set off running along the side 
1. Jouk. Duck. 


THE DEATH OF THE RED FOX 


179 


of the mountain toward Balachulish; and I, like a sheep, 
to follow him. 

Now he ran among the birches; now stooping behind 
low humps upon the mountain side; now crawling on 
all-fours among the heather. The pace was deadly: 
my heart seemed bursting against my ribs; and I had 
neither time to think nor breath to speak with. Only 
I remember seeing with wonder, that Alan every now 
and then would straighten himself to his full height and 
look back ; a-nd every time he did so, there came a 
great far-away cheering and crying of the soldiers. 

Quarter of an hour later, Alan stopped, clapped 
down flat in the heather, and turned to me. 

“Now,” said he, “it’s earnest. Do as I do for your 
life.” 

And at the same speed, but now with infinitely more 
precaution, we traced back again across the mountain 
side by the same way that we had come, only perhaps 
higher; till at last Alan threw himself down in the 
upper wood of Lettermore, where I had found him at 
the first, and lay with his face in the"bracken, panting 
like a dog. 

My own sides so ached, my head so swam, my 
tongue so hung out of my mouth with heat and dry- 
ness, that I lay beside him like one dead. 


<r 


CHAPTER XVIII 

I TALK WITH ALAN IN THE WOOD OF LETTERMORE 

Aean was the first to come round. He rose, went 
to the border of the wood, peered out a little, and 
then returned and sat down. 

“Well,” said he, “yon was a hot burst, David.” 

I said nothing, nor so much as lifted my face.^ I 
had seen murder done, and a great, ruddy, jovial gen- 
tleman struck out of life in a moment ; the pity of that 
sight was still sore within me, and yet that was but a 
part of my concern. Here was murder done upon the 
man Alan hated; here was Alan skulking in the trees 
and running from the troops; and whether his was 
the hand that fired or only the head that ordered, 
signified but little. By my way of it, my only friend in 
that wild country was blood-guilty in the first degree; 
I held him in horror; I could not look upon his face; 
I would have rather lain alone in the rain on my cold 
isle, than in that warm wood beside a murderer. 

“Are ye still wearied?” he asked again. 

“No,” said I, still with my face in the bracken; “no 
I am not wearied now, and I can speak. You and me 
must twine,” 1 I said. “I liked you very well, Alan ; 
but your ways are not mine, and they’re not God’s; 
and the short and the long of it is just that we must 
twine.” 

“I will hardly twine from ye, David, without some 
kind of reason for the same,” said Alan, mighty 
gravely. “If ye ken anything against my reputation, 
1. Twine. Part. 

180 


1 TALK WITH ALAN IN THE WOOD 181 

it’s the least thing that ye should do, for old acquain- 
tance sake, to let me hear the name of it; and if ye 
have only taken a distaste to my society, it will be 
proper for me to judge if I’m insulted.” 

“Alan,” said I, “what is the sense of this? Ye ken 
very well yon Campbell-man lies in his blood upon the 
road.” 

He was silent for a little ; then says he, “Did ever 
ye hear tell of the stor}' of the Man and the Good 
People?” — by which he meant the fairies. 

“No,” said I, “nor do I want to hear it.” 

“With your permission, Mr. Balfour, I will tell it 
you, whatever,” says Alan. “The man, ye should ken, 
was cast upon a rock in the sea, where it appears the 
Good People were in use to come and rest as they went 
through to Ireland. The name of this rock is called the 
Skerry vore, and it’s not far from where we suffered 
shipwreck. Well, it seems the man cried so sore, if he 
could just see his little bairn before he died! that at 
last the King of the Good People took peety upon him, 
and sent one flying that brought back the bairn in a 
poke 1 and laid it down beside the man where he lay 
sleeping. So, when the man woke, there was a poke 
beside him and something into the inside of it that 
moved. Well, it seems he was one of these gentry 
that think aye the worst of things; and for greater 
security, he stuck his dirk throughout that poke before 
he opened it, and there was his bairn dead. I am 
thinking to myself, Mr. Balfour, that you and the man 
are very much alike.” 

“Do you mean that you had no hand in it?” cried 
I, sitting up. 

“I will tell you first of all, Mr. Balfour of Shaws, 
as one friend to another,” said Alan, “that if I were 
going to kill a gentleman, it would not be in my own 
1. Poke. Bag. 


182 


KIDNAPPED 


country, to bring trouble on my clan; and I would 
not go wanting sword and gun, and with a long fishing- 
rod upon my back.” 

“Well,” said I, “that’s true!” 

“And now,” continued Alan, taking out his dirk and 
laying his hand upon it in a certain manner, “I swear 
upon the Holy Iron 1 I had neither art nor part, act 
nor thought, in it.” 

“I thank God for that!” cried I, and offered him 
my hand. 

He did not appear to it. 

“And here is a great deal of work abolit a Camp- 
bell !” said he. “They are not so scarce, that I ken !” 

“At least,” said I, “you cannot justly blame me, 
for you know very well what you told me in the brig. 
But the temptation and the act are different, I thank 
God again for that. We may all be tempted; but to 
take a life in cold blood, Alan !” And I could say no 
more for the moment. “And do you know who did it?” 
I added. “Do you know that man in the black coat?” 

“I have nae clear mind about his coat,” said Alan, 
cunningly; “but it sticks in my head that it was blue.” 

“Blue or black, did ye know him?” said I. 

“I couldnae just conscientiously swear to him,” says 
Alan. “He gaed very close by me, to be sure, but it’s 
a strange thing that I should just have been tying my 
brogues.” 

“Can you swear that you don’t know him, Alan?” 
I cried, half angered, half in a mind to laugh at his 
evasions. 

“Not yet,” says he; “but I’ve a grand memory for 
forgetting, David.” 

“And yet there was one thing I saw clearly,” said 

1. Holy Iron. Apparently so-called because the hilt was in the 
form of a cross. * 


I TALK WITH ALAN IN THE WOOD 


183 


I; “and that was, that you exposed yourself and me 
to draw the soldiers.” 

“It’s very likely,” said Alan; “and so would any 
gentleman. You and me were innocent of that trans- 
action.” 

“The better reason, since we were falsely suspected, 
that we should get clear,” I cried. “The innocent should 
surely come before the guilty.” 

“Why, David,” said he, “the innocent have aye a 
chance to get assoiled 1 in court; but for the lad that 
shot the bullet, I think the best place for him will be 
the heather. Them that havenae dipped their hands in 
any little difficulty, should be very mindful of the case 
of them that have. And that is the good Christianity. 
For if it was the other way round about, and the lad 
whom I couldnae just clearly see had been in our shoes, 
and we in his (as might very well have been), I think 
we would be a good deal obliged to him oursel’s if he 
would draw the soldiers.” 

When it came to this, I gave Alan up. But he looked 
so innocent all the time, and was in such clear good 
faith in what he said, and so ready to sacrifice himself 
for what he deemed his duty, that my mouth was closed. 
Mr. Henderland’s words came back to me: that we our- 
selves might take a lesson by these w r ild Highlanders. 
Well, here I had taken mine. Alan’s morals were all 
tail-first; but he was ready to give his life for them, 
such as they were. 

“Alan,” said I, “I’ll not say it’s the good Christianity 
as I understand it, but it’s good, enough. And here I 
offer ye my hand for the second time.” 

Whereupon he gave me both of his, saying surely I 
had cast a spell upon him, for he could forgive me 
anything. Then he grew very grave, and said we had 
not much time fo throw away, but must both flee that 

1. Assoiled. Acquitted. 


184 


KIDNAPPED 


country: he, because he was a deserter, and the whole of 
Appin would now be searched like a chamber, and every 
one obliged to give a good account of himself; and I, 
because I was certainly involved in the murder. 

“O !” says I, willing to give him a little lesson. “I 
have no fear of the justice of my country.” 

“As if this was your country !” said he. “Or as if 
ye would be tried here, in a country of Stewarts !” 

“It’s all Scotland,” said I. 

“Man, I whiles woncler at ye,” said Alan. “This is a 
Campbell that’s been killed. Well, it’ll be tried in 
Inverara, the Campbell’s head place ; with fifteen 
Campbells in the jury-box, and the biggest Campbell of 
all (and that’s the Duke) sitting cocking on the bench. 
Justice, David? The same justice, by all the world, 
as Glenure found a while ago at the roadside.” 

This frighted me a little, I confess, and would have 
frighted me more if I had known how nearly exact were 
Alan’s predictions; indeed, it was but in one point that 
he exaggerated, there being but eleven Campbells on the 
jury; though as the other four were equally in the 
Duke’s dependence, it mattered less than might appear. 
Still, I cried out that he was unjust to the Duke of 
Argyle, who (for all he was a Whig) was yet a wise and 
honest nobleman. 

-^Hoot!” said Alan, “the man’s a Whig, nae doubt; 
but I would never deny he was a good chieftain to his 
clan. And what would the clan think if there w T as a 
Campbell shot, and naebody hanged, and their own chief 
the Justice General ? 1 But I have often observed,” says 
Alan, “that you Low-country bodies have no clear idea 
of what’s right and wrong.” 

At this I did at last laugh out aloud; when to my 
surprise, Alan joined in and laughed as merrily as 
myself. 

1. Justice General. The highest judge in Scotland. 


I TALK WITH ALAN IN THE WOOD 


185 


“Na, na,” said he, “we’re in the Hielands, David; 
and when I tell ye to run, take mj word and run. Nae 
doubt it’s a hard thing to skulk and starve in the heather, 
but it’s harder yet to lie shackled in a redcoat prison.” 

I asked him whither we- should flee ; and as he told me 
“to the Lowlands,” I was a little better inclined to go 
with him ; for indeed I was growing impatient to get back 
and have the upper hand of my uijjcle. Besides Alan 
made so sure there would be no question of justice in 
the matter, that I began to be afraid he might be right. 
Of all deaths, I would truly like least to die by the 
gallows ; and the picture of that uncanny instrument 
came into my head with extraordinary clearness (as I 
had once seen it engraved at the top of a peddler’s 
ballad) and took away my appetite for courts of justice. 

“I’ll chance it, Alan,” said I. “I’ll go with you.” 

“But mind you,” said Alan, “it’s no small thing. Ye , 
maun lie bare and hard, and brook many an empty belly. 
Your bed shall be the moorcock’s, and your life shall be 
like the hunted deer’s, and ye shall sleep with your hand 
upon your weapon. Ay, man, ye shall taigle 1 many a 
weary foot, or we get clear ! I tell ye this at the start, 
for it’s a life that I ken well. But if ye ask what other 
chance ye have, I answer: Nane. Either take to the 
heather with me, or else hang.” 

“And that’s a choice very easily made,” said I; and 
we shook hands upon it. 

“And now let’s take another keek 2 at the redcoats,” 
says Alan, and he led me to the north-eastern fringe of 
the wood. 

Looking out between the trees, we could see a great 
side of mountain, running down exceeding steep into the 
waters of the loch. It was a rough part, all hanging 
stone, and heather, and bit scrogs 3 of birchwood; and 

1. Taigle. Travel. 2. KeeJc. Peep. 

3. Bit scrogs. Small stunted sbrubs. 


186 


KIDNAPPED 


away at the far end toward Balachulish, little wee red 
soldiers were dipping up and down over hill and howe, 
and growing smaller every minute. There was no cheer- 
ing now, for I think they had other uses for what breath 
was left them; but they still stuck to the trail, and 
doubtless thought that we were close in front of them. 

O 

Alan watched them, smiling to himself. 

“Ay,” said he, “they’ll be gey 1 weary before they’ve 
got to the end of that employ ! And so you and me, 
David, can sit down and eat a bite, and breathe a bit 
longer, and take a dram from my bottle. Then we’ll 
strike for Aucharn, the house of my kinsman, James 
of the Glens, where I must get my clothes, and my arms, 
and money to carry us along; and then, David, we’ll 
cry ‘Forth, Fortune!’ and take a cast among the 
heather.” 

So we sat again and ate and drank, in a place whence 
we could see the sun going down into a field of great, j 
wild and houseless mountains, such as I was now con- 1 
demned to wander in with my companion. Partly as 3 
we so sat, and partly afterwards, on the way to Aucharn, i 
each of us narrated his adventures; and I shall here 

■ 

set down so much of Alan’s as seems either curious or ' 
needful. 

It appears he ran to the bulwarks as soon as the wave 
was passed; saw me, and lost me, and saw me again, 
as I tumbled in the roost; and at last had one glimpse 
of me clinging on the yard. It was this that put him 
in some hope I would maybe get to land after all, and 
made him leave these clues and messages which had 
brought me (for my sins) to that unlucky country of 
Appin. 

In the meanwhile, those still on the brig had got the 
skiff launched, and one or two were on board of her 

1 . Gey. Very. 


1 TALK WITH ALAN 1 


7 00D 


187 


already, when there came a second wave greater than 
the first, and heaved the brig out of her place, and 
would certainly have sent her to the bottom, had she not 
struck and caught on some projection of the reef. When 
she had struck first, it had been bows-on, so that the 
stern had hitherto been lowest. But now her stern was 
thrown in the air, and the bows plunged under the sea; 
and with that, the water began to pour, into the fore- 
scuttle like the pouring of a mill-dam. 

It took the color out of Alan’s face, even to tell what 
followed. For there were still two men lying impotent 
in their bunks; and these, seeing the water pour in and 
thinking the ship had foundered, began to cry out aloud, 
and that with such harrowing cries that all who were on 
deck tumbled one after another into the skiff and fell 
to their oars. They were not two hundred yards away, 
when there came a third great sea ; and at that the brig 
lifted clean over the reef ; her canvas filled for a moment, 
and she seemed to sail in chase of them, but settling all 
the while; and presently she drew down and down, as 
if a hand was drawing her; and the sea closed over the 
Covenant of Dysart. 

Never a w r ord they spoke as they pulled ashore, being 
stunned wdth the horror of that screaming ; but they had 
scarce set foot upon the beach when Hoseason woke up, 
as if out of a muse, and bade them lay hands upon 
Alan. They hung back indeed, having little taste for 
the employment; but Hoseason w r as like a fiend; crying 
that Alan was alone, that he had a great sum about him, 
that he had been the means of losing the brig and 
drowning all their comrades, and that here was both 
revenge and wealth upon a single cast. It was seven 
against one; in that part of the shore there was no 
rock that Alan could set his back to; and the sailors 
began to spread out and come behind him. 


188 


KIDNAPPED 


“And then ,” said Alan, “the little man with the red 
head — I have nae mind of the name that he is called.” 

“Riach,” said I. 

“Ay,” said Alan, “Riach! Well, it was him that took 
up the clubs for me, asked the men if they werenae 
feared of a judgment, and says he, ‘Dod, I’ll put my back 
to the Hielandman’s mysel’.’ That’s none such an 
entirely bad little man, yon little man with the red head,” 
said Alan. “He has some spunks 1 of decency.” 

“Well,” said I, “he was kind to me in his way.” 

“And so he was to Alan,” said he ; “and by my troth, 
I found his way a very good one! But ye see, David, 
the loss of the ship and the cries of these poor lads sat 
very ill upon the man; and I’m thinking that would be 
the cause of it.” 

“Well, I would think so,” said I; “for he was as keen 
as any of the rest at the beginning. But how did 
Hoseason take it?” 

“It sticks in my mind that he would take it very ill,” 
says Alan. “But the little man cried to me to run, and 
indeed I thought it was a good observe, and ran. The 
last that I saw they were all in a knot upon the beach, 
like folk that were not agreeing very well together.” 

“What do you mean by that?” said I. 

“Well, the fists were going,” said Alan ; “and I saw 
one man go down like a pair of breeks. But I thought 
it would be better no to wait. Ye see there’s a strip of 
Campbells in that end of Mull, which is no good com- 
pany for a gentleman like me. If it hadnae been for that 
I would have waited and looked for ye mysel’, let alone 
giving a hand to the little man.” (It was droll how 
Alan dwelt on Mr. Riach’s stature, for, to say the truth, 
the one was not much smaller than the other.) “So,” 
says he, continuing, “I set my best foot forward, and 
whenever I met in with any one I cried out there was a 
1. Spunks. Sparks. 


I TALK WITH ALAN IN THE WOOD 189 

wreck ashore. Man, they didnae stop to fash 1 with me ! 
Ye should have seen them linking 2 for the beach! And 
when they got there they found they had had the pleasure 
of a run, which is aye good for a Campbell. Pm thinking 
it was a judgment on the clan that the brig went down 
; in the lump and didnae break. But it was a very 
unlucky thing for you, that same; for if any wreck had 
come ashore they would have hunted high and low, and 
would soon have found ye.” 

1. Fash. Bother, trouble. 2. Linking. Tripping along. 


I 


CHAPTER XIX 

THE HOUSE OF FEAR 

Night fell as we were walking, and the clouds, which 
had broken up in the afternoon settled in and thickened, | 
so that it fell, for the season of the year, extremely dark, i 
The way we went was over rough mountain sides; and 
though Alan pushed on with an assured manner, I could 
by no means see how he directed himself. 

At last, about half-past ten of the clock, we came to 
the top of a brae , 1 and saw lights below us. It seemed a 
house door stood open and let out a beam of fire’ and 
candle light; and all round the house and steading , 2 
five or six persons were moving hurriedly about, each 
carrying a lighted brand. 

“James must have tint 3 his wits,” said Alan. “If this 
was the soldiers instead of you and me he would be in 
a bonny mess. But I daresay he’ll have a sentry on 
the road, and he would ken well enough no soldiers would 
find the way that we came.” 

Hereupon he whistled three times, in a particular 
manner. It was strange to see how, at the first sound 
of it, all the moving torches came to a stand, as if thef 
bearers were affrighted; and how, at the third, the bustle i 
began again as before. 

Having thus set folks’ minds at rest, we came down 
the brae, and were met at the yard gate (for this place, 
was like a well-doing farm) by a tall, handsome man of 
more than fifty, who cried out to Alan in the Gaelic. | 

1. Brae. Hill. • 

2. Steading. The farm buildings ; here, those other than th' 
farm-house., 

3. Tint. Lost. } 


193 


THE HOUSE OF FEAR 


191 


James Stewart,’ said Alan, “I wiL ask ye to speak 
in Scotch, for here is a young gentleman with me that 
has nane of the other. This is him,” he added, putting 
his arm through mine, “a young gentleman of the 
I Lowlands, and a laird in his country too, but I am 
thinking it will be the better for his health if we give 
his name the go-by.” 

James of the Glens turned to me for a moment, and 
greeted me courteously enough ; the next he had turned 
! to Alan. 

“This has been a dreadful accident,” he cried. “It 
will bring trouble on the country.” And he wrung his 
hands. 

“Hoots!” said Alan, “ye must take the sour with the 
sweet, man. Colin Roy is dead, and be thankful for 
that !” 

“Ay,” said James, “and by my troth, I wish he was 
alive again! It’s all very fine to blow and boast before- 
hand; but now it’s done, Alan; and who’s to bear the 
wyte 1 of it? The accident fell out in Appin — mind ye 
that, Alan ; it’s Appin that must pay ; and I am a man 
that has a family.” 

While this was going on, I looked about me at the 
servants. Some were on ladders, digging in the thatch 
of the house or the farm buildings, from which they 
brought out guns, swords, and different weapons of war; 
others carried them away ; and by the sound of mattock 
blows from somewhere further down the brae, I suppose 
they buried them. Though they were all so busy, there 
prevailed no kind of order in their efforts ; men struggled 
together for the same gun and ran into each other with 
their burning torches ; and James w T as continually turn- 
ing about from his talk with Alan, to cry out orders 
which were apparently never understood. The faces in 
;he torchlight were like those of people overborne with 

1. Wyte. Blame. 


192 


KIDNAPPED 


hurry and panic; and, though none spoke above his I 
breath, their speech sounded both anxious and angry. 

It was about this time that a lassie came out of the | 
house carrying a pack or bundle ; and it has often made 
me smile to think how Alan’s instinct awoke at the mere 
sight of it. 

“What’s that the lassie has?” he asked. 

“We’re just setting the house in order, Alan,” said 
James, in his frightened and somewhat fawning way. i 
“They’ll search Appin with candles, and we must have 
all things straight. We’re digging the bit guns and 
swords into the moss, ye see; and these, I am thinking, 
will be your ain French clothes. We’ll be to bury them, 

I believe.” 

“Bury my French clothes!” cried Alan. “Troth, no!” 
And he laid hold upon the packet and retired into the 
barn to shift himself, recommending me in the meanwhile 
to his kinsman. 

James carried me accordingly into the kitchen, and 
sat down with me at table, smiling and talking at first 
in a very hospitable manner. But presently the gloom 
returned upon him; he sat frowning and biting his 
fingers; only remembered me from time to time; and 
then gave me but a word or two and a poor smile, and 
back into his private terrors. His wife sat by the fire 
and wept, with her face in her hands ; his eldest son was 
crouched upon the floor, Yunning over a great mass of 
papers and now and again setting one alight and burning 
it to the bitter end; all the while a servant lass with a 
red face was rummaging about the room, in a blind hurry 
of fear, and whimpering as she went ; and every now 
and again, one of the men would thrust in his face from 
the yard and cry for orders. 

At last James could keep his seat no longer, and 
begged my permission to be so unmannerly as walk 
about. “I am but poor company altogether, sir,” says 


THE HOUSE OF FEAR 


193 


he, “but I can think of nothing but this dreadful acci- 
dent, and the trouble it is like to bring upon quite 
innocent persons.” 

A little after he observed his son burning a paper, 
which he thought should have been kept; and at that 
his excitement burst out so that it was painful to witness. 
He struck the lad repeatedly. 

“Are you gone gyte ?” 1 he cried. “Do you wish to 
hang your father?” and forgetful of my presence, car- 
ried on at him a long time together in the Gaelic, the 
young man answering nothing; only the wife, at the 
name of hanging, throwing her apron over her face and 
sobbing out louder than before. 

This was all wretched for a stranger like myself to 
hear and see ; and I was right glad when Alan returned, 
looking like himself in his fine French clothes, though 
(to be sure) they w T ere now grown almost too battered 
and withered to deserve that name. I was then taken 
out in my turn by another of the sons, and given that' 
change of clothing (of which I had stood so long in 
need), and a pair of Highland brogues, made of deer- 
leather, rather strange at first, but after a little practice 
very easy to the feet. 

By the time I came back, Alan must have told his 
story; for it seemed understood that I w r as to fly with 
him, and they were all busy upon our equipment. They 
gave us each a sword and pistols, though I professed my 
inability to use the former; and with these, and some 
ammunition, a bag of oatmeal, an iron pan, and a bottle 
of right French brandy, we were ready for the heather. 
Money, indeed, was lacking. I had about two guineas 
left; Alan’s belt having been despatched by another 
hand, that trusty messenger had no more than seventeen- 
pence to his whole fortune; and as for James, it appears 
he had brought himself so low with journeys to Edin- 

1. Gyle. Mad. 


194 


KIDNAPPED 


burgh and legal expenses on behalf of the tenants, that 
he could only scrape together three and fivepence 
halfpenny; the most of it in coppers. 

“This’ll no do,” said Alan. 

“Ye must find a safe bit somewhere near by,” said 
James, “and get word sent to me. Ye see, ye’ll have £0 
get this business prettily off, Alan. This is no time to 
be stayed for a guinea or two. They’re sure to get wfind 
of ye, sure to seek ye, and by my way of it, sure to lay 
on ye the wyte of this day’s accident. If it falls on 
you, it falls on me that am your near kinsman and har- 
bored ye while ye were in the country. And if it comes 

on me ” He paused, and bit his fingers, with a w r hite 

face. “It would be a painful thing for our friends if 
I w r as to hang,” said he. 

“It would be an ill day for Appin,” says Alan. 

“It’s a day that sticks in my throat,” said James. “O 
man, man, man — man, Alan ! you and me have spoken 
* like two fools !” he cried, striking his hand upon the 
w r all so that the house rang again. 

“Well, and that’s true, too,” said Alan; “and my 
friend from the Lowlands here” (nodding at me) “gave 
me a good word upon that head, if I would only have 
listened to him.” 

“But see here,” said James, returning to his former 
manner, “if they lay me by the heels, Alan, it’s then that 
you’ll be needing the money. For with all that I have 
said, and that you have said, it will look very black 
against the two of us; do ye mark that? Well, follow 
me out, and ye’ll see that I’ll have to get a paper out 
against ye mysel’ ; I’ll have to offer a reward for ye; 
ay , will I ! It’s a sore thing to do between such near 
friends; but if I get the dirdum 1 of this dreadful acci- 
dent, I’ll have to fend for myself, man. Do ve see 
that?” 


1. Dirdv ™. Blame. 


THE HOUSE OF FEAR 


195 


He spoke with a pleading earnestness, taking Alan by 
the breast of the coat. 

“Ay,” said Alan, “I see that.” 

“And ye’ll have to be clear of the country, Alan — ay, 
and clear of Scotland — you and your friend from the 
Lowlands, too. For I’ll have to paper your friend 1 
from the 4 Lowlands. Ye see that, Alan — say that ye 
see that!” 4 

I thought Alan flushed a bit. “This is unco 2 hard 
on me that brought him here, James,” said he, throwing 
his head back. “It’s like making me a traitor!” 

“Now, Alan, man !” cried James, “look things in the 
face! He’ll be papered anyway; Mungo Campbell ’ll be 
sure to paper him; what matters if I paper him, too? 
And then, Alan, I am a man that has a family.” And 
then, after a little pause on both sides: “And, Alan, 
it’ll be a jury of Campbells,” said he. 

“There’s one thing,” said Alan, musingly, “that nae- 
body kens his name.” 

“Nor yet they shallnae, Alan ! There’s my hand on 
that,” cried James, for all the world as if he had really 
known my name and w^as foregoing some advantage. 
“But just the habit he w^as in, and what he looked like, 
and his age, and the like? I couldnae well do less.” 

“I wonder at your father’s son,” cried Alan, sternly. 
“Would ye sell the lad with a gift? would ye change his 
clothes and then betray him?” 

“No, no, Alan,” said James. “No, no: the habit he 
took off — the habit Mungo saw him in.” But I thought 
he seemed crest-fallen; indeed he was clutching at every 
straw; and all the time, I daresay, saw the faces of his 
hereditary foes on the ^ench and in the jury-box, and 
the gallows in the background. 

1. Paper your friend. Publish an advertisement or proclamation 
concerning your friend. 

2. Unco. Very. 


196 


KIDNAPPED 


“Well, sir,” says Alan, turning to me, “what say ye to 
that? Ye are here under the safeguard of my honor; 
and it’s my part to see nothing done but what shall 
please you.” 

“I have but one word to say,” said I; “for to all this 
dispute I am a perfect stranger. But the plain common 
sense is to set the blame where it belongs, and that is on 
the man that fired the shot. Paper him, as ye call it, 
set the hunt on him ; and let honest, innocent folk show 
their faces in safety.” 

But at this both Alan and James cried out in horror ; 
bidding me hold my tongue, for that was not to be 
thought of ; and asking me “What the Camerons would 
think?” (which again confirmed me, it must have been 
a Cameron from Mamore that did the act), and if I did 
not see that the lad might be caught? “Ye havenae 
surely thought of that?” said they, with such innocent 
earnestness, that my hands dropped at my side, and I 
despaired of argument. 

“Very well, then,” said I, “paper me, if you please, 
paper Alan, paper King George! We’re all three inno- 
cent, and that seems to be what’s wanted] But at least, 
sir,” said I to James, recovering from my little fit of 
annoyance, “I am Alan’s friend, and if I can be helpful 
to friends of his, I wfill not stumble at the risk.” 

I thought it best to put a fair face on my consent, 
for I saw Alan troubled ; and besides (thinks I to myself) 
as soon as my back is turned, they will paper me, as 
they call it, whether I consent or not. But in this I 
saw r I was wrong; for I had no sooner said the words, 
than Mrs. Stewart leaped out of her chair, came running 
over to us, and wept first upon my neck and then on 
Alan’s, blessing God for our goodness to her family. 

“As for you, Alan, it was no more than your bounden 
duty,” she said. “But for this lad that has come here 
and seen us at our worst, and seen the goodman fleeching 


THE HOUSE OF FEAR 


197 


like a suitor, him that by rights should give his com- 
mands like any king — as for you, my lad,” she says, 
“my heart is wae 1 not to have your name, but I have 
your face; and as long as my heart beats under my 
bosom, I will keep it, and think of it, and bless it.” And 
with that she kissed me, and burst once more into such 
sobbing, that I stood abashed. 

“Hoot, hoot !” said Alan, looking mighty silly. “The 
day comes unco soon in this month of July : and tomor- 
row there’ll be a fine to-do in Appin, a fine riding of 
dragoons, and crying of ‘Cruachan !’ 2 and running of 
redcoats; and it behooves you and me to be the sooner 
gone.” 

Thereupon we said farewell, and set out again, bending 
somewhat eastward, in a fine mild dark night, and over 
much the same broken country as before. 

1. Wae. Sad, sorrowful. 

2. . Cruachan. Rallying cry of the Campbells. 


CHAPTER XX 

, \ 


THE FLIGHT IN THE HEATHER : THE ROCKS 

Sometimes we walked, sometimes ran ; and as it drew 
on to morning, walked ever the less and ran the more. 
Though, upon its face, that country appeared to be a 
desert, yet there w^ere huts and houses of the people, of 
which we must have passed more than twenty, hidden 
in quiet places of the hills. When we came to one of 
•these, Alan would leave me in the way, and go himself 
and rap upon the side of the house and speak a while 
at the w r indow r with some sleeper awakened. This was 
to pass the news; which, in that country, was so much 
of a duty that Alan must pause to attend to it even 
while fleeing for his life; and so well attended to by 
others, that in more than half of the houses where we 
called, they had heard already of the murder. In the 
others, as well as I could make out (standing back at 
a distance and hearing a strange tongue) the new T s w r as 
received with more of consternation than surprise. 

For all our hurry, day began to come in while we 
were still far from any shelter. It found us in a pro- 
digious valley, strewn with rocks and where ran a 
foaming river. Wild mountains stood around it; there 
grew T there neither grass nor trees , and I have sometimes 
thought since then, that it may have been the valley 
called Glencoe , 1 where the massacre was in the time of 

1. Glencoe, etc. During the efforts of William of Orange to put 
down the rebellion of the Highlanders in 1691, an amnesty was de- 
clared for all those who would surrender before January 1, 1692. All 
the chiefs submitted except Macdonald of Glencoe, a valley in Argyll- 
shire. He also submitted a few days later, but he and all his follow- 
ers who could be captured were treacherously shot. The survivors 
were driven from the valley. % 

198 

?u<. u/jr 


* THE ROCKS 


199 


King William. But for the details of our itinerary, I 
am all to seek; our way lying now by short cuts, now 
by great detours ; our pace being so hurried ; our time 
of journeying usually by night; and the names of such 
places as I asked and heard being in the Gaelic tongue 
and the more easily forgotten. 

The first peep of morning, then, showed us this 
horrible place, and I could see Alan knit his brow. 

“This is no fit place for you and me,” he said. “This 
is a place they’re bound to watch.” 

And with that he ran harder than ever down to the 
waterside, in a part where the river was split in two 
.among three rocks. It went through with a horrid 
thundering that made my belly quake; and there hung 
over the lynn 1 a little mist of spray. Alan looked neither 
to the right nor to the left, but jumped clean upon the 
middle rock and fell there on his hands and knees to 
check himself, for that rock was small and he might 
have pitched over on the far side. I had scarce time to 
measure the distance or to understand the peril before 
I had followed him, and he had caught and stopped me. 

So there we stood, side by side upon a small rock 
slippery with spray, a far broader leap in front of us, 
and the river dinning upon all sides. When I saw where 
I was there came on me a deadly sickness of fear, and I 
put my hand over my eyes. Alan took me and shook 
me; I saw he was speaking, but the roaring of the falls 
and the trouble of my mind prevented me from hearing; 
only I saw his face was red with anger, and that he 
stamped upon the rock. The same look showed me the 
water raging by and the mist hanging in the air; and 
with that, I covered my eyes again and shuddered. 

The next minute Alan had set the hrandy bottle to my 
lips, and forced me to drink about a gill, which sent 
the blood into my head again. Then, putting his hands 
1. Lynn. A cataract or the pool beneath it. 


20u 


KIDNAPPED 


to his mouth, and his mouth to my ear, he shouted, “Hang 
or drown !” and turning his back upon me, leaped over 
the farther branch of the stream, and landed safe. 

I was now alone upon the rock, which gave me the 
more room ; the brandy was singing in my ears ; I had 
this good example fresh before me, and just wit enough 
to see that if I did not leap at once, I should never 
leap at all. I bent low on my knees and flung myself 
forth, with that kind of anger of despair that has some- 
times stood me in stead of courage. Sure enough, it 
was but my hands that reached the full length; these 
slipped, caught again, slipped again; and I was slid- 
dering back into the lynn, when Alan seized me, first by 
the hair, then by the collar, and with a great strain 
dragged me into safety. 

Never a word he said, but set off running again for 
his life, and I must stagger to my feet and run after 
him. I had been weary before, but now I was sick and 
bruised, and partly drunken with the brandy; I kept 
stumbling as I ran, I had a stitch that came near to 
overmaster me; and when at last Alan paused under a 
great rock that stood there among a number of others, 
it was none too soon for David Balfour. 

A great rock, I have said ; but by rights it was two 
rocks leaning together at the top, both some twenty feet 
high, and at the first sight inaccessible. Even Alan 
(though you may say he had as good as four hands) 
failed twice in an attempt to climb them; and it was 
only at the third trial, and then by standing on my 
shoulders and leaping up with such force as I thought 
must have broken my collar-bone, that he secured a lodg- 
ment. Once there, he let down his leathern girdle,; and 
with the aid of that, and a pair of shallow footholds in 
the rock, I scrambled up beside him. 

Then I saw why we had come there; for the two 
rocks, both being somewhat hollow on the top and slop- 


TH-E ROCKS 


201 


ing one to the other, made a kind of dish or saucer, 
where as many as three or four men might have lain 
hidden. 

All this while, Alan had not said a word, and had run 
and climbed with such a savage, silent frenzy of hurry, 
that I knew he was in mortal fear of some miscarriage. 
Even now we were on the rock he said nothing, nor so 
much as relaxed the frowning look upon his face; but 
clapped flat down, and keeping only one eye above the 
edge of our place of shelter, scouted all round the com- 
pass. The dawn had come quite clear; we could see the 
stony sides of the valley, and its bottom, which was 
bestrewed with rocks, and the river, which went from one 
side to another, and made white falls; but nowhere the 
smoke of a house, nor any living creature but some eagles 
screaming round a cliff. 

Then at last Alan smiled. 

“Ay,” said he, “now we have a chance;” and then 
looking at me with some amusement, “Ye’re no very 
gleg 1 at the jumping,” said he. 

At this I suppose I colored with mortification, for he 
added at once, “Hoots ! small blame to ye ! To be feared 
of a thing and yet to do it, is what makes the prettiest 
kind of a man. And then there was water there, and 
water’s a thing that dauntons 2 even me. No, no,” said 
Alan, “it’s no you that’s to blame, it’s me.” 

I asked him why. 

“Why,” said he, “I have proved myself a gomeral 3 
this night. For first of all I take a wrong road, and 
that in my own country of Appin ; so that the day has 
caught us where we should never have been ; and thanks 
to that, we lie here in some danger and mair discomfort. 
And next (which is the worst of the two, for a man 
that has been so much among the heather as myself) I 
have come wanting a water-bottle, and here we lie for 
1. Gleg. Lively. 2, Dauntons. Daunts. 3. Gomeral. Fool. 


202 


KIDNAPPED 


a long summer’s day with naething but neat spirit . 1 Ye 
may think that a small matter ; but before it comes night, 
David, ye’ll give me news of it.” 

I was anxious to redeem my character, and offered, 
if he would pour out the brandy, to run down and fill 
the bottle at the river. 

“I wouldnae waste the good spirit either,” says he. 
“It’s been a good friend to you this night, or in my 
poor opinion, ye would still be cocking 2 on yon stone. 
And what’s mair,” says he, “ye may have observed >(y ou 
that’s a man of so much penetration) that Alan Breck 
Stewart was perhaps walking quicker than his ordinar’.” 

“You!” I cried, “you were running fit to burst.” 

“Was I so?” said. he. “Well, then, ye may depend 
upon it, there was nae time to be lost. And now here is 
enough said ; gang you to your sleep, lad, and I’ll 
watch.” 

Accordingly, I lav down to sleep ; a little peaty jearth 
had drifted in between the top of the two rocks, and 
some bracken grew there, to be a bed to me; the last 
thing I heard was still the crying of the eagles. 

I daresay it would be nine in the morning when I was 
roughly awakened, and found Alan’s hand pressed upon 
my mouth. 

“Wheesht!” he whispered. “Ye were snoring.” 

“Well,” said I, surprised at his anxious and dark face, 
“and why not?” • 

He peered over the edge of the rock, and signed to 
me to do the like. 

It was now high day, cloudless, and very hot. The 
valley was as clear as in a picture. About half-a-mile 
up the Water was a camp of redcoats ; a big fire blazed 
in their midst, at which some were cooking; and near 
by, on the top of a rock about as high as ours, there 

1. Neat spirit. Pure, unmixed distilled liquor. 

2. Cocking. Tipping or swaying (in hesitation). 


THE ROCKS 


203 


stood a sentry, with the sun sparkling on his arms. All 
the way down along" the riverside were posted other 
sentries ; here near together, there widelier scattered ; some 
planted like the first, on places of command, some on 
the ground level, and marching and counter-marching, 
so as to meet half-way. Higher up the glen, where the 
ground was more open, the chain of posts was continued 
by horse-soldiers, whom we could see in the distance 
riding to and fro. Lower down, the infantry con- 
tinued ; but as the stream was suddenly swelled by the 
confluence of a considerable bum, they were more widely 
set, and only watched the fords and stepping-stones. 

I took but one look at them and ducked again into 
my place. It was strange indeed to see this valley, which 
had lain so solitary in the hour of dawn, bristling with 
arms and dotted with the redcoats and breeches. 

“Ye see,” said Alan, “this was what I was afraid of, 
Davie : that they would w^atch the burnside . 1 They 
began to come in about two hours ago, and, man ! but 
ye’re a grand hand at the*sleeping ! We’re in a narrow 
place. If they get up the sides of the hill, they could 
easy spy us with a glass; but if they’ll only keep in 
the foot of the valley, we’ll do yet. The posts are 
thinner down the water; and come night, we’ll try our 
hand at getting by them.” 

“And what are we to do till night?” I asked. 

“Lie here,” said he, “and birstle.” 2 

That one good Scotch word, birstle, was indeed the 
most of the story of the day that we had now to pass. 
You are to remember that we lay on the bare top of a 
rock, like scones 3 upon a girdle; the sun beat upon us 
cruelly; the rock grew so heated, a man could scarce 
endure the touch of it; and the little patch of earth 

1. Burnside. Brook-side. 

2. Birstle. Broil. 

3. Rennes. Cakes of wheat, barley, or oatmeal baked on a griddle 
(giidie). 


204 


KIDNAPPED 


and fern, which k£pt cooler, was only large enough for 
one at a time. We took turn about to lie on the naked 
rock, which was indeed like the position of that saint 
that was martyred on a gridiron ; and it ran in my 
mind how strange it was that, in the same climate and 
at only a few days’ distance, I should have suffered so 
cruelly, first from cold upon my island, and now from 
heat upon this rock. 

All the while we had no water, only raw brandy for a 
drink, which was worse than nothing ; but we kept the 
bottle as cool as we could, burying it in the earth, and 
got some relief by bathing our breasts and temples. 

The soldiers kept stirring all day in the bottom of 
the valley, now changing guard, now in patrolling par- 
ties hunting among the rocks. These lay round in so 
great a number, that to look for men among them was 
like looking for a needle in a bottle of hay; and being 
so hopeless a task, it was gone about with the less care. 
Yet we could see the soldiers pike their bayonets among 
the heather, which sent a cold thrill into my vitals ; and 
they would sometimes hang about our rock, so that we 
scarce dared to breathe. 

It was in this way that I first heard the right English 
speech; one fellow as he went by actually clapping his 
hand upon the sunny face of the rock on which we lay, 
and plucking it off again with an oath. 

“I tell you it’s ’ot,” says he; and I was amazed at 
the clipping tones and the odd sing-song in which he 
spoke, and no less at that strange trick of dropping out 
the letter “h.” To be sure, I had heard Ransome ; but 
he had taken his ways from all sorts of people, and 
spoke so imperfectly at the best, that I set down the 
most of it to childishness. My surprise was all the 
greater to hear that manner of speaking in the mouth 
of a grown man ; and indeed I have never grown used 
with it; nor yet altogether with the English grammar, 


THE ROCKS 


205 


as perhaps a very critical eye might here and there spy 
out even in these memoirs. 

The tediousness and pain of these hours upon the 
rocks grew only the greater as the day went on; the 
rock getting still the hotter and the sun fiercer. There 
were giddiness, and sickness, and sharp pangs like 
rheumatism, to be supported. I minded then, and have 
often minded since, on the lines in our Scotch Psalm : 

f< The moon by night thee shall not smite, 

Nor yet the sun by day;" 

and indeed it was only by God’s blessing that we were 
neither of us sun-smitten. 

At last, about two, it was beyond men’s bearing, and 
there was now temptation to resist, as well as pain to 
thole . 1 For the sun being now got a little into the west, 
there came a patch of shade on the east side of our 
rock, which was the side sheltered from the soldiers. 

“As well one death as another,” said Alan, and slipped 
over the edge and dropped on the ground on the shadowy 
side. 

I followed him at once, and instantly fell all my 
length, so weak was I and so giddy with that long 
exposure. Here, then, we lay for an hour or two, 
aching from head to foot, as ‘weak as water, and lying 
quite naked to the eye of any soldier who should have 
strolled that way. None came, however, all passing by 
on the other side ; so that our rock continued to be our 
shield even in this new position. 

Presently we began again to get a little strength ; 
and as the soldiers were now lying closer along the 
riverside, Alan proposed that we should try a start. I 
was by this time afraid of but one thing in the world; 
and that was to be set back upon the rock ; anything else 
w r as welcome to me ; so we got ourselves at once in 
1. Thole. Endure. 


206 


KIDNAPPED 


marching order, and began to’ slip from rock to rock 
one after the other, now crawling flat on our bellies in j 
the shade, now making a run for it, heart in mouth. 

The soldiers, having searched this side of the valley j 
after a fashion, and being perhaps somewhat sleepy 
with the sultriness of the ' afternoon, had now laid by 
much of their vigilance, and stood dozing at their posts, 
or only kept a look-out along the banks of the river; 
so that in this way, keeping down the valley and at the j 
same time toward the mountains, we drew steadily away 
from their neighborhood. But the business was the most 
wearing I had ever taken part in. A man had need of 
a hundred eyes in every part of him, to keep concealed 
in that uneven country and within cry of so many and 
scattered sentries. When we must pass an open place, 
quickness was not all, but a swift judgment not only of 
the lie of the whole country, but of the solidity of every 
stone on which we must set foot; for the afternoon was 
now fallen so breathless that the rolling of a pebble 
sounded abroad like a pistol shot, and would start the 
echo calling among the hills and cliffs. 

By sundown, we had made some distance, even by our 
slow rate of progress, though to be sure the sentry on 
the rock was still plainly in our view. But now we came 
on something that put alt fears out of season; and that 
was a deep, rushing burn that tore down, in that part, 
to join the glen-river. At the sight of this, we cast 
ourselves on the ground and plunged head and shoulders 
in the water ; and I cannot tell which was the more 
pleasant, the great shock as the cool stream went over 
us, or the greed with which we drank of it. 

We lay there (for the banks hid us), drank again and 
again, bathed our chests, let our wrists trail in the run- 
ning water till they ached with the chill ; and at last, 
being wonderfully renewed, we got out the meal-bag and 
made drammach in the iron pan. This, though it is but 


THE ROCKS 


207 


cold water mingled with oatmeal, yet makes a good 
enough dish for a hungry man; and where there are 
no means of making fire, or (as in our case) good reason 
for not making one, it is the chief stand-bj^ of those who 
have taken to the heather. 

As soon as the shadow of night had fallen, we set forth 
again, at first w T ith the same caution, but presently with 
more boldness, standing our full height and stepping 
out at a good pace of walking. The way was very 
intricate, lying up the steep sides of mountains and 
along the brows of cliffs; clouds had come in wdth the 
sunset, and the night was dark and cool; so that I 
walked without much fatigue, but in continual fear of 
falling and rolling down the mountains, and with no 
guess at our direction. 

The moon rose at last and found us still on the road; 
it w r as in its last quarter and w T as long beset wdth clouds ; 
but after a while shone out, and showed me many dark 
heads of mountains, and was reflected far underneath us 
on the narrow arm of a sea-loch . 1 

At this sight we both paused: I, struck wdth wonder 
to find myself so high and walking (as it seemed to me) 
upon clouds: Alan, to make sure of his direction. 

Seemingly he was .w^ell pleased, and he must certainly 
have judged us out of ear-shot of all our enemies; for 
throughout the rest of our night-march, he beguiled the 
way w r ith whistling of many tunes, warlike, merry, plain- 
tive; reel tunes that made the foot go faster; tunes of 
my own south country that made me fain to be home 
from my adventures; and all these, on the great, dark, 
desert mountains, making company upon the way. 

1. Sea-loch. An arm of the sea. 


CHAPTER XXI 

THE PLIGHT IN THE HEATHER : THE HEUGH OF 
CORRYNAKIEGH 

Early as day comes in the beginning of July, it was 
still dark when we reached our destination, a cleft in the 
head of a great mountain, with a water running through 
the midst, and upon the one hand a shallow cave in a 
rock. Birches grew there in a thin, pretty wood, which 
a little further on was changed into a wood of pines. 
The burn was full of trout; the wood of cushat-doves; 
on the opening side of the mountain beyond, whaups 1 
would be always whistling and cuckoos were plentiful. 
From the mouth of the cleft we looked down upon a 
part of Mamore, and on the sea-loch that divides that 
country from Appin ; and this from so great a height, 
as made it my continual wonder and pleasure to sit and 
behold them. 

The name of the cleft was the Heugh of Corry- 
nakiegh ; 2 and although from its height and being so 
near upon the sea it was often beset with clouds, yet it 
was on the whole a pleasant place, and the five days w r e 
lived in it went happily. 

We slept in the cave, making our bed of heather 
bushes which we cut for that purpose, and covering 
ourselves with Alan’s great-coat. There was a low con- 
cealed place, in a turning of the glen, where we were 
so bold as to make fire : so that we could warm ourselves 
when the clouds set in, and cook hot porridge, and grill 
the little trouts that we caught with our hands und’er 

1. Whaups. Curlews. 

2. Ileugh of Corrynakiegh. A heugh is a steep hill. 

208 


THE HEUGH OF CORRYNAKIEGH 


209 


the stones and overhanging banks of the burn. This 
was indeed our chief pleasure and business ; and not 
only to save our meal against worse times, but with a 
rivalry that much amused us, we spent a great part of 
our days at the waterside, stripped to the waist, and 
groping about or (as they say) guddling for these fish. 
The largest we got might have been three-quarters of 
a pound; but they were of good flesh and flavor, and 
when broiled upon the coals, lacked only a little salt to 
be delicious. \ 

In any by-time Alan must teach me to use my sword, 
for my ignorance had much distressed him; and I think 
besides, as I had sometimes the upper hand of him in the 
fishing, he was not sorry to turn to an exercise where 
he had so much the upper hand of me. He made it 
somewhat more of a pain than need have been, for he 
stormed at me all through the lessons in a very violent 
manner of scolding, and would push me so close that I 
made sure he must run me through the body. I was 
often tempted to turn tail, but held my ground for all 
that, and got some profit of my lessons; if it was but 
to stand on guard with an assured countenance, which 
is often all that is required. So, though I could never 
in the least please my master, I was not altogether 
displeased with myself. 

In the meanwhile, you are not to suppbse that we 
neglected our chief business, which was to get away. 

“It will be many a long day,” Alan said to me on our 
first morning, “before the redcoats think upon seeking 
Corrynakiegh*; so now we must get word sent to James, 
and he must find the siller 1 for us.” 

“And how shall we send that word?” says I. “We 
are here in a desert place, which yet we dare not leave ; 
and unless ye get the fowls of the air to be your 
messengers, I see not what we shall be able to do.” 

1. Siller. Money. 


210 


KIDNAPPED 


“Ay?” said Alan. “Ye’re a man of small contrivance, 
David.” 

Thereupon he fell in a muse, looking in the embers 
of the fire; and presently, getting a piece of wood, he 
fashioned it in a cross , 1 the four ends of which he black- 
ened on the coals. Then he looked at me a little shyly. 

“Could ye lend me my button?” sa}^ he. “It seems 
a strange thing to ask a gift again, but I own I am 
laith 2 to cut another.” 

I gave him the button ; whereupon he strung it on a 
strip of his great-coat which he had used to bind the 
cross ; and tying in a little sprig of birch and another 
of fir, he looked upon his work with satisfaction. 

“Now,” said he, “there is a little clachan” (what is 
called a hamlet in the English) “not very far from 
Corrynakiegh, and it has the name of Koalisnacoan. 
There, there are living many friends of mine whom I 
could trus,t with my life, and some that I am no just so 
sure of. Ye see, David, there will be money set upon our 
heads; James himsel’ is to set money on them; and as 
for the Campbells, they would never spare siller where 
there was a Stewart to be hurt. If it was otherwise, I 
would go down to Koalisnacoan whatever, and trust my 
life into these people’s hands as lightly as I would trust 
another with my glove.” 

1. A cross, etc. The custom of preparing and sending about the 

Fiery Cross, as described in Scott’s Lady of Vie Lake, Canto III, is 
as follows : A"" priest fashions a cross of yew, chars the ends with 

fire, and quenches them in the blood of a goat, uttering, after each step 
in the ceremony, a dreadful curse upon any who shall refuse to heed 
the summons for the clan to rise. When the cross has been duly pre- 
pared in this manner, it is given to a swift runner, who is to bear 
it for a certain distance through the territory occupied by the clan, 
summoning all the clansmen whom he meets to assemble at the gath- 
ering-place. Ilis own part of the duty performed, the runner gives 
the cross to another, who must bear it in like manner to the next 
stage, where he gives it to another still— and so on until a complete 
ciicuit has been made and all the clansmen have heard the summons. 

2. Laitli. Reluctant, loth. 


THE HEUGH OF CORRYNAKIEGH 


211 


“But being so?” said I. 

“Being so,” said he, “I would as lief they didnae see 
me. There’s bad folk everywhere, and what’s far worse, 
weak ones. So when it comes dark again, I will steal 
down into that claehan, and set this that I have been 
making in the window of a good friend of mine, John 
Breck Maccoll, a bouman of Appin’s. 

“With all my heart,” says I ; “and if he finds it, what 
is he to think?” 

“Well,” says Alan, “I wish he was a man of more 
penetration, for by my troth I am afraid he will make 
little enough of it! But this is what I have in mind. 
This cross is something in the nature of the cross-tarrie, 
or fiery cross, which is the signal of gathering in our 
clans ; yet he will know well enough the, clan is not to 
rise, for there it is standing in his window, with no word 
wjth it. So he will say to himsel’, The clan is not to rise, 
but there is something. Then he will see my button, and 
that was Duncan Stewart’s. And then he will say to 
himsel’, The son of Duncan is in the heather and has 
need of me.” 

“Well,” <said I, “it may be. But even supposing so, 
there is a good deal of heather between here and the 
Forth.” 

“And that is a very true word,” says Alan. “But then 
John Breck will see the sprig of birch and the sprig of 
pine; and he will say to himsel’ (if he is a man of any 
penetration at all, which I misdoubt), Alan will be lying 
in a wood which is both of pines and birches. Then he 
will think to himsel’, That is not so very rife 1 hereabout; 
and then he will come and give us a look up in Corry- 
nakiegh. And if he does not, David, the devil may flv 
away with him, for what I care; for he will no be worth 
the salt to his porridge.” 

“Eh, man,” said I, drolling with him a little, “you’re 
1. Rife. Plentiful. 


212 


KIDNAPPED 


very ingenious ! But would it not be simpler for you 
to write him a few words in black and white?” 

“And that is an excellent observe, Mr. Balfour of 
Shaws,” says Alan, drolling with me; “and it would 
certainly be much simpler for me to write to him, but 
it would be a sore job for John Breck to read it. He 
would have to go to the school for two-three years; and 
it’s possible we might be wearied waiting on him.” 

So that night Alan carried down his fiery cross and 
set it in the bouman’s window. He was troubled when 
he came back; for the dogs had barked and the folk 
run out from their houses ; and he thought he had heard 
a clatter of arms and seen a redcoat come to one of the 
doors. On all accounts, we lay the next day in the 
borders of the w r ood and kept a close look-out ; so that 
if it was John Breck that came, we might be ready to 
guide him, and if it was the redcoats, we should have 
time to get away. 

About noon a man was to be spied, straggling up the 
open side of the mountain in the sun, and looking round 
him as he came, from under his hand. No sooner had 
Alan seen him than he whistled; the man turned and 
came a little toward us: then Alan would give another 
“peep !” and the man would come still nearer ; and so 
by the sound of w’histling, he was guided to the spot 
where we lay. 

He was a ragged, wild, bearded man, about forty, 
grossly disfigured with the small-pox, and looked both 
dull and savage. Although his English was very bad 
and broken, yet Alan (according to his very handsome 
use, whenever I was by) would suffer him to speak no 
Gaelic. Perhaps the strange language made him appear 
more backward than he really was ; but I thought he had 
little good-will to serve us, and what he had was the 
child of terror. 

Alan would have had him carry a message to James ; 


THE HEUGH OF CORRYNAKIEGH 


213 


but the bouman would hear of no message. “She was 
forget it,” he said in his screaming voice; and would 
either have a letter or wash his hands of us. 

I thought Alan would be gravelled at that, for we 
lacked the means of writing in that desert. But he was 
a man of more resources than I knew ; searched the wood 
until he found a quill of a cushat-dove, which he shaped 
into a pen ; made himself a kind of ink with gunpowder 
from his horn and water from the running stream; and 
tearing a -corner from his French military commission 
(which he carried in his pocket, like a talisman to keep 
him from the gallows), he sat down and wrote as follows: 

“DEAk Kinsman, — Please send the money by the bearer to the 
place he kens of. » 

“Your affectionate cousin, 

“A. S.” 

This he intrusted to the bouman, who promised to 
make what manner of speed he best could, and carried 
it off with him down the hill. 

He was three full days gone, but about five in the 
evening of the third, we heard a whistling in the wood, 
which Alan answered; and presently the bouman came 
up the waterside, looking for us, right and left. He 
seemed less sulky than before, and indeed he was no 
doubt well pleased to have got to the end of such a 
dangerous commission. 

He gave us the news of the country ; that it was alive 
with redcoats ; that arms were being found, and poor 
folk brought in trouble daily; and that James and some 
of his servants were already clapped in prison at Fort 
William, under strong suspicion of complicity. It 
seemed, it was noised on all sides that Alan Breck had 
fired the shot; and there was a bill issued for both him 
and me, with one hundred pounds reward. 

This was all as bad as could be; and the little note 
the bouman had carried us from Mrs. Stewart v r as of 


214 


KIDNAPPED 


a miserable sadness. In it she besought Alan not to let 
himself be captured, assuring him, if he fell in the hands 
of the troops, both he and James were no better than 
dead men. The money she had sent was all that she 
could beg or borrow, and she prayed heaven we could 
be doing with it. Lastly, she said she enclosed us one 
of the bills in which we were described. 

This we looked upon with great curiosity and not a 
little fear, partly as a man may look in a mirror, partly 
as he might look into the barrel of an enemy’s gun to 
judge if it be truly aimed. Alan was advertised as “a 
small, pock-marked, active man of thirty-five or thereby, 
dressed in a feathered hat, a French side-coat of blue 
with silver buttons and lace a great deal tarnished, a 
red waistcoat and breeches of black shag;” 1 and I as 
“a tall strong lad of about eighteen, wearing an old blue 
coat, very ragged, an old Highland bonnet, a long home- 
spun waistcoat, blue breeches ; his legs bare ; low-country 
shoes, wanting the toes ; speaks like a Lowlander, and 
has no beard. 

Alan was well enough pleased to see his finery so fully 
remembered and set down ; only when he came to the 
word tarnish, he looked upon his lace like one a little 
mortified. As for myself, I thought I cut a miserable 
figure in the bill, and yet was well enough pleased, too ; 
for since I had changed these rags, the description had 
ceased to be a danger and become a source of safety. 

“Alan,” said I, “you should change your clothes.” 

“Na, troth !” said Alan, “I have nae others. , A fine 
sight I would be if I went back to France in a bonnet !” 

This put a second reflection in my mind: that if I 
were to separate from Alan and his tell-tale clothes, I 
should be safe against arrest, and might go openly | 
about my business. Nor was this all; for suppose I I 
was arrested when I was alone, there was little against i 

1. Shag. Cloth with rough or long nap. 


THE HEUGH OF CORRYNAKIEGH 


215 


me ; but suppose I was taken in company with the 
reputed murderer, my case would begin to be grave. For 
generosity’s sake, I dare not speak my mind upon this 
head-; but I thought of it none the less. 

I thought of it all the more, too, when the bouman 
brought out a green purse with four guineas in gold, and 
the best part of another in small change. True, it w r as 
more than I had. But then Alan, with less than five 
guineas, had to get as far as France; I, with my less 
than two, not beyond Queensferry ; so that, taking things 
in their proportion, Alan’s society was not only a peril 
to my life but a burden on my purse. 

But there was no thought of the sort in the honest 
head of my companion. He believed he was serving, 
helping, and protecting me. And what could I do but 
hold my peace, and chafe, and take my chance of it? 

“It’s little enough,” said Alan, putting the purse in 
his pocket, “but it’ll do my business. And now, John 
Breck, if ye wfill hand me over my button, this gentleman 
and me will be for taking the road.” 

But the bouman, after feeling about in a hairy purse 
that hung in front of him in the Highland manner 
(though he wore otherwise the Lowland habit, with sea- 
trousers) began to roll his eyes strangely, and at last 
said, “Her nainsel will loss it,” meaning he thought he 
had lost it. 

“What!” cried Alan, “you will lose my button, that 
was my father’s before me? Now, I will tell you what 
is in my mind, John Breck: it is in my mind this is the 
worst day’s work that ever ye did since ye were born.” 

And as Alan spoke, he set his hands on his knees and 
looked at the bouman with a smiling mouth, and that 
dancing light in his eyes that meant mischief to his 
enemies. 

Perhaps the bouman was honest enough ; perhaps he 
had meant to cheat and then, finding himself alone with 


216 


KIDNAPPED 


% 

two of us in a desert place, cast back to honesty as being 
safer; at least, and all at once, he seemed to find the 
button and handed it to Alan. 

“Well, and it is a good thing for the honor of the 
Maccolls,” said Alan, and then to me, “Here is my 
button back again, and I thank you for parting with it, 
which is of a piece with all your friendships to me.” 
Then he took the warmest parting of the bouman. 
“For,” says he, “ye have done very w T ell by me, and set 
your neck at a venture, and I will always give you the 
name of a good man.” 

Lastly, the bouman took himself off by one way ; and 
Alan and I (getting our chattels together) struck into 
another to resume our flight. 


i 


/ 


CHAPTER XXII 


THE FLIGHT IN THE HEATHER I THE MUIR 

More than eleven hours of incessant, hard traveling 
brought us early m the morning to the end of a range 
of mountains. In front of us there lay a piece of low, 
broken, desert land, which we must now cross. The sun 
was not long up and shone straight in our eyes ; a little, 
thin mist went up from the face of the moorland like a 
smoke; so that (as Alan said) there might have been 
twenty squadrons of dragoons there, and we none the 
wiser. 

We sat down, therefore, in a howe of the hillside, 
till the mist should have risen, and made ourselves a 
dish of drammach, and held a council of war. 

“David,” said Alan, “this is the kittle bit . 1 Shalhwe 
lie here till it comes night, or shall we risk it and stave 
on ahead?” 

“Well,”, said I, “I am tired indeed, but I could walk 
as far again, if that was all.” 

“Ay, but it isnae,” said Alan, “nor yet the half. This 
is how we stand: Appin’s fair death to us. To the 
south, it’s all Campbells, and no to be thought of. To 
the north; well, there’s no muckle to be gained, by 
going north; neither for you, that wants to get to 
Queensferry, nor yet for me, that wants to get to France. 
Well, then, we’ll can strike east.” 

“East be it !” says I, quite cheerily ; but I was think- 
ing, in to myself: “O man, if you would only take one 
point of the compass and let me take any other, it would 
be the best for both of us.” 

“Well, then, east, ye see, we have the Muirs,” said 

1. Kittle tit. Ticklish situation. 

217 


218 


KIDNAPPED 


Alan. “Once there, David, it’s mere pitch-and-toss. Out ! 
on yon bald, naked, flat place, where can a body turn ' 
to ? Let the redcoats come over a hill, they can spy 
you miles away ; and the sorrow’s in their horses’ heels ! 
they would soon ride you down. It’s no good place, ; 
David; and I’m free to say, it’s worse by daylight than 
by dark.” 

“Alan,” said I, “hear my way of it. Appin’s death I 
for us; we may have none too much money, nor yet j 
meal; the longer they seek, the nearer they may guess | 
where we are ; it’s all a risk ; and I give my word to go 
ahead until we drop.” 

Alan was delighted. “There are whiles,” said he, 
“when ye are altogether too canny and Whiggish to be 
company for a gentleman like me; but there come other 
whiles when ye show yoursel’ a mettle spark ; and it’s 
then, David, that I love ye like a brother.” 

The mist rose and died away, and showed us that 
country lying as waste as- the sea; only the moorfowl 
and the peewees crying upon it, and far over to the 
east, a herd of deer, moving like dots. Much of it was 
red heather; much of the rest broken up with bogs and 
hags and peaty pools ; some had been burnt black ill a 
heath-fire ; and in another place there was quite a forest 
of dead firs, standing like skeletons. A wearier looking 
desert man never saw ; but at least it was clear of troops, 
which was our point. 

We went down accordingly into the waste, and began 
to make our toilsome and devious travel toward the 
eastern verge. There were the tops of mountains all 
round (you are to remember) from whence we might be 
spied at any moment ; so it behooved us to keep in the 
hollow parts of the moor, and when these turned aside 
from our direction, to move upon its naked face w T ith 
infinite care. Sometimes for half-an-hour together we 
must crawl from one heather-bush to another, as hunters 


THE MUIR 


219 


do when they are hard upon the deer. It was a clear 
day again, with a blazing sun ;' the water in the brandy 
bottle was soon gone; and altogether, if I had guessed 
what it would be to crawl half the time upon my belly 
and to walk much of the rest stooping nearly to the 
knees, I should certainly have held back from such a 
killing^ enterprise. 

Toiling and resting and toiling again, we wore away 
the morning; and about noon lay down in a thick bush 
of heather to sleep. Alan took the first w r atch; and it 
seemed to me I had scarce closed my eyes before I was 
shaken up to take the second. We had no clock to go 
by ; and Alan stuck a sprig of heath in the ground to 
serve instead; so that as soon as the shadow of the 
bush should fall so far to the east, I might know to rouse 
him. But I was by this time so weary that I could have 
slept tw r elve hours at a stretch ; I had the taste of sleep 
in my throat ; my j oints slept even when my mind was 
waking; the hot smell of the heather, and the drone of 
the wild bees, were like possets 1 to me; and every now 
and again I would give a jump and find I had been 
dozing. ' . 

The last time I woke, I seemed to come back from 
further away, and thought the sun had taken a great 
start in the heavens. I looked at the sprig of heath, 
and at that I could have cried aloud ; for I saw I had 
betrayed my trust. My head was nearly turned w r ith 
fear and shame; and at what I saw, when I looked out 
around me on the muir, my heart was like dying in my 
body. For sure enough, a body of horse-soldiers had 
come down during my sleep, and were drawing near to 
us from the south-east, spread out in the shape of a fan 
and riding their horses to and fro in the deep parts of 
the heather. 

1 . Possets. A sweetened, spiced drink, composed of hot milk and 
liquor, and thickened with bread. 


220 


KIDNAPPED 


When I waked Alan, he glanced first at the soldiers, 
then at the mark and the position of the sun, and knitted ; 
his brows with a sudden, quick look, both ugly and 
anxious, which was all the reproach I had of him. 

“What are we to do now?” I asked. 

“We’ll have to play at being hares,” said he. “Do 
ye see yon mountain?” pointing to one on the north- 
eastern sky. 

“Ay,” said I. 

“Well, then,” says he, “let us strike for that. Its 
name is Ben Alder; it is a wuld, desert mountain full of 
hills and hollows, and if we can win to it before the 
morn, we may do yet.” 

“But, Alan,” cried I, “that will take us across the 
very coming of the soldiers !” 

“I ken that fine,” said he ; “but if we are driven back 
on Appin, we are two dead men. So now, David man, 
be brisk !” 

With that he began to run forward on his hands and 
knees with an incredible quickness, as though it were his 
natural w T ay of going. All the time, too, he kept wind- 
ing in and" out in the lower parts of the moorland where 
we were the best concealed. Some of these had been 
burned or at least scathed with fire; and there rose in 
our faces (which were close to the ground) a blinding, 
choking dust as fine as smoke. The water was long 
out; and this posture of running on the hands and 
knees brings an overmastering weakness and weariness, 
so that the joints ache and the wrists faint under your 
weight. 

Now and then, indeed, where was a big bush of heather, 
we lay a while and panted, and putting aside the leaves, 
looked back at the dragoons. They had not spied us, 
for they held straight on; a half-troop, I think, cover- 
ing about two miles of ground and beating it mighty 
thoroughly as they went. I had awakened just in time; 


THE MUIR 


221 


a little later, and we must have fled in front of them, 
instead of escaping on one side. Even as it was, the 
least misfortune might betray us; and now and again, 
when a grouse rose out of the heather with a clap of 
wings, we lay as still as the dead and were afraid to 
breathe. 

The aching and faintness of my body, the laboring of 
my heart, the soreness of my hands, and the smarting 
of my throat and eyes in the continual smoke of dust 
and ashes, had soon grown to be so unbearable that I 
would gladly have given up. Nothing but the fear of 
Alan lent me enough of a false kind of courage to con- 
tinue. As for himself (and you are to bear in mind 
that he was cumbered with a - great-coat) he had first 
turned crimson, but as time went on, the redness began 
to be mingled with patches of white; his breath cried 
and whistled as it came ; and his voice, when he whis- 
pered his observations in my ear during our halts, 
sounded like nothing human. Yet he seemed in no way 
dashed in spirits, nor did he at all abate in his activity ; 
so that I was driven to marvel at the man’s endurance. 

At length, in the first gloaming of the night, we heard 
a trumpet sound, and looking back from among the 
heather, saw the troop beginning to collect. A little 
after, they had built a fire and camped for the night, 
about the middle of the waste. 

At this I begged and besought that we might lie down 
and sleep. 

“There shall be no sleep the night !” said Alan. “From 
now on, these weary dragoons of yours will keep the 
crown of the muirland, and none will get out of Appin 
but winged fowls. We got through in the nick of time, 
and shall we jeopard what we’ve gained? Na, na, when 
the day comes, it shall find you and me in a fast place 
on Ben Alder.” 

“Alan,” I said, “it’s not the want of will: it’s the 


222 


KIDNAPPED 


strength that I want. If I could, I would ; but as sure 
as I’m alive, I cannot.” 

“Very well, then,” said Alan. “I’ll carry ye.” 

I looked to see if he were jesting; but no, the little j 
man was in dead earnest; and the sight of so much 
resolution shamed me. 

“Lead away!” said I. “I’ll follow.”' 

He gave me one look, as much as to say, “Well done, 
David !” and off he set again at his top speed. 

It grew cooler and even a little darker (but not much) 
Avith the coming of the night. The sky was cloudless ; 
it was still early in July, and pretty far north; in the 
darkest part of that night, you would have needed pretty 
good eyes to read, but for all that, I have often seen it 
darker in a winter midday. Heavy dew fell and 
drenched the moor like rain; and this refreshed me for 
a while. When we stopped to breathe, and I had time 
to see all about me the clearness and sweetness of the 
night, the shapes of the hills like things asleep, and the 
fire dwindling away behind us, like a bright spot in the 
midst of the moor, anger would come upon me in a clap 
that I must still drag myself in agony and eat the dust 
like a worm. 

By what I have read in books, I think few that have 
held a pen were ever really wearied, or they would write 
of it more strongly. I had no care of my life, neither 
past nor future, and I scarce remembered there was such 
a lad as David Balfour. I did not think of myself, but 
just of each fresh step which I was sure would be my 
last, with despair — and of Alan, who was the cause of 
it, with hatred. Alan was in the right trade as a soldier ; 
this is the officer’s part to make men continue to do things, 
they know not wherefore, and when, if the choice was 
offered, they would lie down where they were and be 
killed. And I daresay I would have made a good enough 
private; for in these last hours it never occurred to 


THE MUIR 


223 


me that I had any choice, but just to obey as long as I 
was able, and die obeying. 

Day began to come in, after years, I thought; and 
by that time, we were past the greatest danger, and could 
walk upon our feet like men, instead of crawling like 
brutes. But, dear heart, have mercy ! what a pair we 
must have made, going double like old grandfathers, 
stumbling like babes, and as white as dead folk. Never 
a word passed between us ; each set his mouth and kept 
his eyes in front of him, and lifted up his foot and set 
it down again, like people lifting weights at a country 
play ; 1 all the while, with the moorfowl crying “peep!” 
in the heather, and the light coming slowly clearer in 
the east. 

I say Alan did as I did: not that ever I looked at 
him, for I had enough ado to keep my feet; but 
because it is plain he must have been as stupid with 
weariness as myself, and looked as little where we were 
going j or we should not have walked into an ambush 
like blind men. 

It fell in this way. We were going down a heathery 
brae, Alan leading and I following a pace or two behind, 
like a fiddler and his wife;" when upon a sudden the 
heather gave a rustle, three or four ragged men leaped 
out, the next moment we were lying on our backs, each 
with a dirk at his throat. 

I don’t think I cared : the pain of this rough 
handling was quite swallowed up by the pains of which 
I was already full; and I was too glad to have stopped 
walking to mind about a dirk. I lay looking up in 
the face of the man that held me; and I mind his face 
was black with the sun, and his eyes very light, but 
I was not afraid of him. I heard Alan and another 
whispering in the Gaelic; and what they said was all 
one to me. 

1. Country play. Village fair. 


224 


KIDNAPPED 


Then the dirks were put up, our weapons were 
taken away, and we were set r face to face, sitting in 
the heather. 

“They are Cluny’s men,” said Alan. “We couldnae 
have fallen better. We’re just to bide here with these, 
which are his out-sentries, till they can get word to the 
chief of my arrival.” # ' 

Now Cluny Macpherson, the chief of the clan Yourich, 
had been one of the leaders of the great rebellion six 
years before; 1 there was a price on his life; and I 
had supposed him long ago in France, with the rest 
of the heads of that desperate party. Even tired as 
I w^as* the surprise of what I heard half-wakened me. 

“What?” I cried. “1$, Cluny still here?” 

“Ay is he so!” said Alan. “Still in his own country 
and kept by his own clan. King George can do no 
more.” 

I think I w r ould have asked farther, but Alan gave 
me the put-off. “I am rather wearied,” he said, “and I 
would like fine to get a sleep.” And without more words, 
he rolled on his face in a deep heather-bush, and seemed 
to sleep at once. 

There was no such thing possible for me. You have 
heard grasshoppers whirring in the grass in the summer 
time? Well, I had no sooner closed my eyes, than 
my body, and above all my head, belly, and wrists, 
seemed to be filled with whirring grasshoppers ; and 
I must open my eyes again at once, and tumble and 
toss, and sit up and lie down ; and look at the sky 
which dazzled me, or at Cluny’s wild and dirty sentries, 
peering out over the top of the brae and chattering 
to each other in the Gaelic. 

That was all the rest I had, until the messenger 
returned ; when, as it appeared that Cluny would 

1. The great rebellion six years before. The “45.” See Historical 
Note, Introduction, page 27. 


THE MUIR 


225 


be glad to receive us, we must get once more upon our 
feet and set forward. Alan was in excellent good spirits, 
much refreshed by his sleep, very hungry, and looking 
pleasantly forward to a dram and a dish of hot collops , 1 
of which, it seems, the messenger had brought him word. 
For my part, it made me sick to hear of eating. I 
had been dead-heavy before, and now felt a kind of 
dreadful lightness, which would not suffer me to walk. 
I drifted like a gossamer ; the ground seemed to me 
a cloud, the hills a feather-weight, the air to have a 
current, like a running burn, which carried me to and 
fro. With all that, a sort of horror of despair sat 
on my mind, so that I could have wept at my own 
helplessness. 

I saw Alan knitting his brows at me, and supposed 
it was in anger; and that gave me a pang of light- 
headed fear, like what a child may have. I remember, 
too, that I was smiling, and could not stop smiling, 
hard as I tried; for I thought it was out of place at 
such a time. But my good companion had nothing in 
his mind but kindness; and the next moment, two of 
the gillies had me by the arms, and I began to be 
carried forward with great swiftness (or so it appeared 
to me, although I daresay it was slowly enough in 
truth) through a labyrinth of dreary glens and hollows 
and into the heart of that dismal mountain of Ben 
Alder. 

1. Collops. Slices of meat, especially for stewing. 


CHAPTER XXIII 


cluny’s cage 

We came at last to the. foot of an exceeding steep 
wood, which scrambled up a craggy hillside, and w T as 
crowned by a naked precipice. 

“It’s here,” said one of the guides, and we struck 
up hill. 

The trees clung upon the slope, like sailors on the 
shrouds of a ship ; and their trunks were like the rounds 
of a ladder by which we mounted. 

Quite at the top, and just before the rocky face of 
the cliff sprang above the foliage, we found that strange 
house which was known in the country as “Cluny’s 
Cage.” The trunks of several trees had been wattled 1 
across, the intervals strengthened with stakes, and the 
ground behind this barricade leveled up with earth to 
make the floor. A tree, which grew out from the hill- 
side, was the living center beam of the roof. The walls 
were of wattle and covered with moss. The whole house 
had spmething of an egg shape; and it half hung, 
half stood in that steep, hill-side thicket, like a wasp’s 
nest in a green hawthorn. 

Within, it was large enough to shelter five or six 
persons with some comfort. A projection of the cliff 
had been cunningly employed to be the fireplace; and 
the smoke rising against the face of the rock, and being 
not dissimilar in color, readily escaped notice from 
below. 

1. Wattled. Interwoven with twigs or branches so as to fill up 
the spaces between them. 


226 


227- 


UNY'SCAGE 

This was but one of Cluny’s hiding-places; he ha/ 
caves, besides, and underground chambers in several 
parts of his country; and following the reports of his 
scouts, he moved from one to another as the soldiers 
drew near or moved away. By this manner of living, 
and thanks to the affection of his clan, he had not onty 
stayed all this time in safety, while so many others had 
fled or been taken and slain, but stayed four or five 
years longer, and only went to France at last by the 
express command of his master . 1 There he soon died ; 
and it’s strange to reflect that he may have regretted 
his Cage upon Ben Alder. 

When w r e came to the door, he was seated by his 
rock chimney, watching a gillie about some cooker}^. 
He was mighty plainly habited, with a knitted night- 
cap drawn over his ears, and smoked a foul cutty 2 

pipe. For all that he had the manners of a king, and 

it was quite a sight to see him rise out of his place 
to welcome us. 

“Well, Mr. Stewart, come awa , 3 sir!” said he, “and 
bring in your friend that as yet I dinna ken the 
name of.” 

“And how is yourself, Cluny?” said Alan. “I hope 
ye do brawly , 4 sir. And I am proud to see ye, and 

to present to ye my friend, the Laird of Shaws, Mr. 

David Balfour.” 

Alan never referred to my estate without a touch 
of a sneer, when we w r ere alone; but with strangers, 
he rang the words out like a herald. 

“Step in by, the both of ye, gentlemen,” says Cluny. 

“I make ye welcome to my house, which is a queer, rude 
place for certain, but one where I have entertained 


1. His master. Charles Edward, to whom he acknowledged alle 
giance. 

2. Cutty. Short. 

4. Brawly. Bravely, finely. 




‘Come ana'.” “Como in.” 


228 


KIDNAPPED 


royal personage . 1 Mr. Stewart — ye doubtless ken the 
personage I have in my eye. We’ll take a dram for 
luck, and as soon as this handless man of mine has the 
collops ready, we’ll dine and take a hand at the cartes 
as gentlemen should. My life is a bit driegh ,” 2 says 
he, pouring out the brandy; “I see little company, 
and sit and twirl my thumbs, and mind upon a great 
day that is gone by, and weary for another great day 
that we all hope will be upon the road. And so here’s 
a toast to ye : The Restoration !” 

Thereupon we all touched glasses and drank. I am 
sure I wished no ill to King George ; and if he had 
been there himself in proper person, it’s like he would 
have done as I did. Ne sooner had I taken out the 
dram than I felt hugely better, and I could look on and 
listen, still a little mistily perhaps, but no longer with 
the same groundless horror and distress of mind. 

It was certainly a strange place, and we had a 
strange host. In his long hiding, Cluny had grown to 
have all manner of precise habits, like those of an old 
maid. He had a particular place, where no one else 
must sit ; the Cage was arranged in a particular way, 
which none must disturb; cookery was one of his chief 
fancies, and even while he was greeting us in, he kept 
an eye to the collops. 

It appears he sometimes visited or received visits 
from his wife and one or two of his nearest friends, 
under the cover of night; but for the more part lived 
quite alone, and communicated only with his sentinels 
and the gillies that waited on him in the Cage. The 
first thing in the morning, one of them, who was a 
barber, came and shaved him, and gave him the news 
of the country, of which he was immoderately greedy. 

1. A royal personage. Charles Edward, the young Pretender. 
See Historical Note, Introduction, page 27. 

2. Driegh. Tedious, wearisome. 


CLUNY’S CAGE 


229 


There was no end to his questions; he put them as 
earnestly as a child; and at some of the. answers, laughed 
out of all bounds of reason, and would break out again 
laughing at the mere memory, hours after the barber 
,was gone. 

To be sure, there might have been a purpose in his 
questions; for though he was thus sequestered and, like 
the other landed gentlemen of Scotland, stripped by 
the late Act of Parliament 1 of legal powers, he still 
exercised a patriarchal justice in his clan. Disputes 
were brought to him in his hiding hole to be decided; 
and the men of his country, who would have snapped 
their fingers at the Court of Session , 2 laid aside revenge 
and paid down money at the bare word of this forfeited 
and hunted outlaw. When he was angered, which was 
often enough, he' gave his commands and breathed 
threats of punishment like any king; and his gillies 
trembled and crouched away from him like children 
before a hasty father. With each of them, as he 
entered, he ceremoniously shook hands, both parties 
touching their bonnets at the same time in a military 
manner. Altogether, I had a fair chance to see some 
of the inner workings of a Highland clan ; and this 
with a proscribed, fugitive chief ; his country con- 
quered; the troops riding upon all sides in quest of 
him, sometimes within a mile of where he lay; and 
when the least of the ragged fellows whom he rated and 
threatened could have made a fortune by betraying him. 

On that first day, as soon as the collops were ready,. 
Cluny gave them with his own hand a squeeze of a 
lemon (for he was well supplied with luxuries) and 
bade us draw in to our meal. 

“They,” said he, meaning the collops, “are such as- 

1. Late Act of Parliament. See Historical Note, Introduction,, 
page 27. 

2. Court of Session. The highest civil tribunal in Scotland. 


230 


KIDNAPPED 


I gave His Royal Highness in this very house; bating 
the lemon-juice,, for at that time we were glad to get 
the meat and never fashed for kitchen . 1 Indeed, there 
were mair dragoons than lemons in my country in the 
year forty-six.” 

I do not know if the collops were truly very good, but 
my heart rose against the very sight of them, and I 
could eat but little. All the while Cluny entertained 
us with stories of Prince Charlie’s stay in the Cage, 
giving us the very words of the speakers and rising 
from his place to show us where they stood. By these, 
I gathered the Prince was a gracious, spirited boy, 
like the son of a race of polite kings, but not so wise 
as Solomon. I gathered, too, that while he was in 
the Cage, he was often drunk; so the fault that has 
since, by all accounts, made such a wreck of him, had 
even then begun to show itself. 

We were no sooner done eating, than Cluny brought 
out an old, thumbed, greasy pack of cards, such as 
you may find in a mean inn ; and his eyes brightened 
in his face as he proposed that we should fall to 
playing. 

Now this was one of the things I had been brought 
up to eschew like disgrace: it being held by my 
father neither the part of a Christian nor yet of a 
gentleman, to set his own livelihood and fish for that 
of others, on the cast of painted pasteboard. To be 
sure, I might have pleaded my fatigue, which was 
excuse enough; but I thought it behooved that I should 
bear a testimony. I must have got very red in the 
face, but I spoke steadily, and told them I had no call 
to be a judge of others, but for my own part, it was 
a matter in which I had no clearness. 

Cluny stopped mingling the cards. “What in deil’s 
name is this?” says he. “What kind of Whiggish, 

1. Fashed for kitchen. Troubled for seasoning. 


CLUNY’S CAGE 


231 


canting 1 talk is this, for the house of Cluny Mac- 
pherson ?” 

U I will put my hand in the fire for *Mr. Balfour,” 
says Alan. ^He is an honest and a mettle gentleman, 
and I would have ye bear in mind who says it. I bear 
a king’s name,” says he, cocking his hat; “and I and 
an}'- that I call friend are company for the best. But 
the gentleman is tired, and should sleep; if he has no 
mind to the cartes, it will never hinder you and me. 
And I’m fit and willing, sir, to play ye any game that 
ye can name.” 

“Sir,” says Cluny, “in this poor house of mine, I 
would have you ken that any gentleman may follow 
his pleasure. If your friend would like to stand on 
his head, he is welcome. And if either he, or you, or 
any other man, is not preceesely satisfied, I will be 
proud to step outside with him.” 

I had no will that these two friends should cut their 
throats for my sake. 

“Sir,” said I, “I am very wearied, as Alan says; 
and what’s more, as you are a man that likely has sons 
of your own, I may tell you it w r as a promise to my 
father.” 

“Say nae mair, say nae mair,” said Cluny, and 
pointed me to a bed of heather in a corner of the Cage. 
For all that, he was displeased enough, looked at me 
askance, and grumbled when he looked. And indeed 
it must be owned that both my scruples and the 
words in which I declared them smafcked somewdiat of 
the Covenanter, and were little in their place among 
w ild Highland Jacobites. 

What with the brandy and the venison, a strange 
heaviness had come over me; and I had scarce lain 
dowrn upon the bed before I fell into a kind of trance 
in which I continued almost the w r hole time of our stay 
in the Cage. Sometimes I w*as broad aw^ake and under- 


232 


KIDNAPPED 


stood what passed; sometimes I only heard voices or I 
men snoring, like the voice of a silly river ; and the 
plaids upon the wall dwindled down and swelled out j 
again, like firelight shadows on the roof. I must some- j 
times have spoken or cried out, for I remember I was ! 
now and then amazed at being answered; yet I was | 
conscious of no particular nightmare, only of a general, 
black, abiding horror — a horror of the place I was | 
in, and the bed I lay in, and the plaids on the wall, 
and ..the voices and the fire, and myself. 

The barber-gillie, who was a doctor, too, was called 
in to prescribe for me; but as he spoke in the Gaelic, 

I understood not a word of his opinion, and was too 
sick even to ask for a translation. I knew r well enough 
I was ill, and that was all I cared about. 

I paid little heed while I lay in this poor pass. But 
Alan and Cluny were most of the time at cards, and 
I am clear that Alan must have begun by winning; 
for I remember sitting up, and seeing them hard at it, 
and a great glittering pile of as much as sixty or a 
hundred guineas on the table. It looked strange enough 
to see all this wealth in a nest upon a cliff-side, wattled 
about growing trees. And even then, I thought it 
seemed deep w T ater for Alan to be riding, who had no 
better battle-horse than a green purse and a matter 
of five pounds. 

The luck, it seems, changed on the second day. 
About noon I was awakened as usual for dinner, and 
as usual refused to eat, and was given a dram with some 
bitter infusion winch the barber had prescribed. The 
sun was shining in at the open door of the Cage, and 
this dazzled and offended me. Cluny sat at the table, 
biting the pack of cards. Alan had stooped over the 
bed, and had his face close to my eyes; to which, 
troubled as they w T ere with fever, it seemed of the most 
shocking bigness. 


CLUNY’S CAGE 


233 


He asked me for a loan of my money. 

“What for?” said I. 

“0, just for a loan,” said he. 

“But, why?” I repeated. “I don’t see.” 

“Hut, David!” said Alan, “ye wouldnae grudge me 
a loan?” 

I would, though, if I had my senses! But all I 
thought of then was to get his face away, and I handed 
him my money. 

On the morning of the third day when we had been 
forty-eight hours in the Cage, I awoke with a great 
relief of spirits, very weak and weary indeed, but seeing 
things of the right size and with their honest, every-day 
appearance. I had a mind to eat, moreover; rose from 
bed of my own movement;* and as' soon as we had 
breakfasted, stepped to the entry of the Cage and 
sat down outside in the top of the wood. It was a 
gray day with a cool, mild air : and I sat in a dream 
all morning, only disturbed tty the passing by of Cluny’s 
scouts and servants coming with provisions and reports ; 
for as the. coast was at that time clear, you might 
almost say he held court openly. 

When I returned, he and Alan had laid the cards 
aside and were questioning a gillie ; and the chief 
turned about and spoke to me in the Gaelic. 

“I have no Gaelic, sir,” said I. 

Now, since the card question, everything I said or 
did had the power of annoying Cluny. “Your name 
has more sense than yourself, then,” said he, angrily; 
“for it’s good Gaelic. But the point is this. My scout 
reports all clear in the south, and the question is, have 
ye the strength to go?” 

I saw cards on the table but no gold; only a heap 
of little written papers, and these all on Cluny’s side. 
Alan besides had an odd look, like a man not very well 
content; and I began to have a strong misgiving. 


234 KIDNAPPED 

“I do not know if I am as well as I should be,” said 
I, looking at Alan ; “but the little money we have has 
a long way to carry us.” 

Alan took his underlip into his mouth, and looked 
upon the ground. 

“David,” says he, at last, “I’ve lost it; there’s the 
naked truth.” 

“My money, too?” said I. 

“Your money, too,” says Alan, with a groan. “Ye 
shouldnae have given it me. I’m daft when I get to 
the cartes.” 

“Hoot-toot, hoot-toot,” said Cluny. “It was all 
daffing; it’s all nonsense. Of course, ye’ll have your 
money back again, and the double of it, if ye’ll make 
so free with me. It would be a singular thing for me 
to keep it. It’s not to be supposed that I would be 
any hindrance to gentlemen in your situation ; that 
would be a singular thing!” cries he, and began to 
pull gold out of his pocket, w T ith a mighty red face. 

Alan said nothing, only looked on the ground. 

“Will you step to the door with me, sir?” said I. 

Cluny said he would be very glad, and followed me 
readily enough, but he looked flustered and put out. 

“And now, sir,” says I, “I must first acknowledge 
your generosity.” 

“Nonsensical nonsense !” cries Cluny. “Where’s the 
generosity? This is just a most unfortunate affair; 
but what would ye have me do — boxed up in this 
beeskep 1 of a cage of mine — but just set my friends 
to the cartes, when I can get them? And if they lose, 

of course, it’s not to be supposed ” And here he 

came to a pause. 

“Yes,” said I, “if they lose, you give them back 
their money ; and if they win, they carry away yours 
in their pouches ! I have said before that I grant your 
1. Beeskep. Bee-hive made of twisted straw. 


CLUNY’S CAGE 


235 


generosity; but to me, sir, it’s a very painful thing 
to be placed in this position.” 

There was a little silence, in which Cluny seemed 
always as if he was about to speak, but said nothing. 
All the time he grew redder and redder in the face. 

“I am a young man,” said I, “and I ask your advice. 
Advise me as you would advise your son. My friend 
fairly lost this money, after having fairly gained a 
far greater sum of yours; can I accept it back again? 
Would that be the right part for me to play? What- 
ever I do, you can see for yourself itymust be hard 
upon a man of any pride.” * / 

“It’s rather hard on me, too, Mi-* Balfour,” said 
Cluny, “and ye give me very much the look of a man 
that has entrapped poor people to their hurt. I 
wouldnae have my friends come to any house of mine 
to accept affronts; no,” he cried, with a sudden heat 
of an^er, “nor yet to give them !” 

“And so, you see, sir,” £aid I, “there is something 
to be said upon my side; and this gambling is a very 
poor employ for gentlefolks. But I am still waiting 
your opinion.” 

I am sure if ever Cluny hated any man, it was David 
Balfour. He looked me all over with a warlike eye, 
and I saw the challenge at his lips. But either my 
youth disarmed him, or perhaps his own sense of jus- 
tice. Certainly, it w r as a mortifying matter for all 
concerned, and not least for Cluny; the more credit 
that he took it as he did. 

“Mr. Balfour,” said he, “I think you are too nice 
and covenanting, but for all that you have the spirit 
of a very pretty gentleman. Upon my honest word, 
ye may take this money — it’s what I would tell my 
son — and here’s my hand along with it.” 


CHAPTER XXIV 


THE FLIGHT IN THE HEATHER : THE QUARREL 

Alan and I were put across Loch Errocht under 
cloud of night, and went down its eastern shore to 
another hiding-place near the head of Loch Rannoch, 
whither we w r ere led by one of the gillies from the Cage. 
This fellow carried all our luggage and Alan’s great- 
coat in the bargain, trotting along under the burthen, 
far less than half of which used to weigh me to the 
ground, like a stout hill pony with a feather; yet he 
w r as a man that, in plain contest, I could have broken 
on my knee. 

Doubtless it was a great relief to walk disencumbered ; 
and perhaps wuthout that relief, and the consequent 
sense of liberty and lightness, I could not have walked 
at all. I was but new risen from a bed of sickness, 
and there was nothing in the state of our affairs to 
hearten me for much exertion; traveling, as we did, 
over the most dismal deserts in Scotland, under a cloudy 
heaven, and with divided hearts among the travelers. 

For long we said nothing; marching alongside or one 
behind the other, each with a set countenance ; I, angry 
and proud, and drawing w T hat strength I had from 
these two violent and sinful feelings: Alan, angry 
and ashamed, ashamed that he had lost my money, angry 
that I should take it so ill. ' 

The thought of a separation ran always the stronger 
in my mind; and the more I approved of it, the more 
ashamed I grew of my approval. It would be a fine, 
handsome, generous tiling, indeed, for Alan to turn 
236 • 


THE QUARREL 


237 


round and say to me : “Go, I am in the most danger, 
. and my company only increases yours.” But for mo 
to turn to the friend who certainly loved me, and say 
to him: “You are in great danger, I am in but little; 
your friendship is a burden; go, take your risks and 
bear your hardships alone — - — ” no, that was im- 
possible ; and even to think of it privily to myself, 
made my cheeks to burn. 

And yet Alan had behaved like a child and (what is 
worse) a treacherous child. Wheedling my money 
from me while I lay half-conscious was scarce better 
than theft ; and yet here he w r as trudging by my side, 
without a penny to his name, and by what I could see, 
quite blithe to sponge upon th®* money he had driven 
me to beg. True, I was ready to share it with him; 
but it made me rage to see him count upon my readi- 
ness. 

These were the two things uppermost in my mind; 
and I could open my mouth upon neither without black 
ungenerosity. So I did the next worse, and said 
nothing, nor so much as looked once at my companion, 
save with the tail of my eye. 

At last, upon the other side of Loch Errocht, 
going over a smooth, rushy place, where the walking 
w T as easy, he could bear it no longer, and came close 
to me. 

“David,” says he, “this is no way for two friends 
to take a small accident. I have to say that I’m 
sorry; and so that’s said. And now if you have any- 
thing, ye’d better say it.” 

“O,” says I, “I have nothing.” 

He seemed disconcerted ; at which I w r as meanly 
pleased. 

“No,” said he, with rather a trembling voice, “but 
when I say I was to blame?” 

“Why, of course, ye were to blame,” said I, coolly; 


238 


KIDNAPPED 


“and you will bear me out that I have never reproached 
you.” 

“Never,” says he; “but ye ken very well that ye’ve 
done worse. Are we to part? Ye said so once before. 
Are ye to say it again ? There’s hills and heather 
enough between here and the two seas, David; and I 
will own I’m no very keen to stay where I’m no 
wanted.” 

This pierced me like a sword, and seemed to lay 
bare my private disloyalty. 

“Alan Breck!” I cried; and then: “Do you think 
I am one to turn my back on you in your chief need? 
You dursn’t say it to my face. My whole conduct’s 
there to give the lie to it. It’s true, I fell asleep upon 
the Muir; but that was* from weariness, and you do 
wrong to cast it up to me 


“Which is what I never did,” said Alan. 

“But, aside from that,” I continued, “what have I 
done that you should even me to dogs by such a sup- 
position? I never yet failed a friend, and it’s not likely 
I’ll begin with you. There are things between us that 
I can never forget, even if you can.” 

“I will only say this to ye, David,” said Alan, very 
quietly, “that I have long enough been owing ye my 
life, and now I owe ye money. Ye should try to make 
that burden light for me.” 

This ought to have touched me, and in a manner it 
did, but the wrong manner. I felt I was behaving 
badly ; and was now not only angry with Alan, but 
angry with myself in the bargain; and it made me 
the more cruel. 

“You asked me to speak,” said I. “Well, then, I 
will. \ ou own yourself that you have done me a 
disservice; I have had to swallow an affront; I have 
never reproached you, I never named the thing till you 
did. And now you blame me,” cried I, “because I 


THE QUARREL 2 3D 

cannae laugh and sing as if I was glad to be affronted. 
The next thing will be that I’m to go down upon my 
knees and thank you for it! Ye should think more of 
others, Alan Breck. If ye thought more of others, 
ye would perhaps speak less about yourself ; and when 
a friend that liked you very well has passed over an 
offence without a word, you w T ould be blithe to let it 
lie, instead of making it a stick to break his back with. 
By your own way of it, it was you that was to blame; 
then it shouldnae be you to seek the quarrel.” 
“Aweel,” said Alan, “say nae mair.” 

And we fell back into our former silence; and came 
to our journey’s end and supped, and lay down to 
sleep, without another word, * 

The gillie put us across Loch Rannoch in the dusk 
of the next day, and gave us his opinion as to our best 
route. This was to get us up at once into the tops of 
the mountains: to go round by a circuit, turning the 
heads of Glen Lyon, Glen Lochay, and Glen Dochart,. 
and come dowm upon the Lowlands by Kippen and the 
upper waters of the Forth. Alan was little pleased 
with a route which led us through the country of his 
blood-foes, the Glenorchy Campbells. He objected that 
by turning to the east, we should come almost at once 
among Athole Stewarts, a race of his own name and 
lineage, although following a different chief, and come 
besides by a far easier and swifter way to the place 
whither w r e were bound. But the gillie, wdio was indeed 
the chief man of CJuny’s scouts, had good reasons to 
give him on all hands, naming the force of troops in 
every district, and alleging finally (as w r ell as I could 
understand) that we should nowhere be so little 
troubled as in a country of the Campbells. 

Alan gave way at last, but with only half a heart. 
“It’s one of the dowiest 1 countries in Scotland,” said 

1. Dowiest. Dullest. 


240 


KIDNAPPED 


he. “There’s naething there that I ken, but heath, 
and crows, and Campbells. But I see that ye’re a man 
of some penetration ; and be it as ye please !” 

We set forth accordingly by this itinerary; and for 
the best part of three nights traveled on eerie moun- 
tains and among the well-heads of wild rivers ; often 
buried in mist, almost continually blown and rained 
upon, and not once cheered by any glimpse of sunshine. 
By day, we lay and slept in the drenching heather; 
by night, incessantly clambered upon breakneck hills 
and among rude crags. We often wandered; we were 
often so involved in fog, that we must lie quiet till it 
lightened. A fire was never to be thought of. Our 
only food was drummach 1 -< and a portion of cold meat 
that we had carried from the Cage; and as for drink, 
Heaven knows we had no want of water. 

This was a dreadful time, rendered the more dreadful 
by the gloom of the weather and the country. I was 
never warm; my teeth chattered in my head; I was 
troubled with a very sore throat, such as I had on the 
isle ; I had a painful stitch in my side, which never 
left me ; and when I slept in my wet bed, with the rain 
beating above and the mud oozing below me, it was to 
live over again in fancy the worst part of my adven- 
tures — to see the tower of Shaws lit by lightning, 
Ransome carried below on the men.’s back^, Shuan dying 
•on the round-house floor, or Colin Campbell grasping 
at the bosom of his coat. From such broken slumbers, 
I would be aroused in the gloaming, to sit up in the 
same puddle where I had slept and sup cold drammach ; 
the rain driving sharp in my face or running down my 
back in icy trickles; the mist enfolding us like as in 
a gloomy chamber — or perhaps, if the wind blew, 
falling suddenly apart and showing us the gulf of 
some dark valley where the streams were crying aloud. 

1. Drummach. Same as “draminach,” of. page 2(76, last line. 


THE QUARREL 


24 1 


The sound of an infinite number of rivers came up 
from all round. In this steady rain, the springs of 
the mountains were broken up ; every glen gushed water 
like a cistern ; ev£ry stream was in high spate , 1 and 
had filled and overflowed its channel. During our night 
tramps, it was solemn to hear the voice of them below 
in the valleys, now booming like thunder, now with an 
angry cry. I could well understand the story of the 
Water Kelpie, that demon of the streams, who is fabled 
to keep wailing and roaring at the ford until the coming 
of the doomed traveler. Alan, I saw, believed it, or 
half believed it ; and when the cry of the river rose 
more than usually sharp, I was little surprised (though, 
of course, I would still be shocked) to see him cross 
himself in the manner of the Catholics. 

During all these horrid wanderings, we had no 
familiarity, scarcely even that of speech. The truth 
is that I was sickening for my grave, which is my 
best excuse. But besides that I was of an unfor- 
giving disposition from my birth, slow to take offence, 
slower to forget it, and now incensed both against my 
companion and myself. For the best part of two days, 
he was unweariedly kind ; silent, indeed, but always 
ready to help, and always hoping (as I could very 
well see) that my displeasure would blow by. For the 
same length of time, I stayed in myself, nursing my 
anger, roughly refusing his services, and passing him 
over with my eyes as if he had been a bush or a stone. 

The second night, or rather the peep of the third 
day, found us upon a very open hill, so that we could 
not follow our usual plan and lie down immediately 
to eat and sleep. Before* we had reached a place of 
shelter, the gray had come pretty clear, for though 
it still rained, the clouds ran higher; and Alan, looking 
in my face, showed some marks of concern. 

1. Spate. Flood. 


242 


KIDNAPPED 


“Ye had better let me take your pack,” said he, for 
perhaps the ninth time since we parted from the scout 
beside Loch Itannoch. 

“I do very well, I thank you,” said I, as cold as ice. 

Alan flushed darkly. “I’ll not offer it again,” he 
said. “I’m not a patient man, David.” 

“I never said you were,” said I, which was exactly 
the rude silly speech of a boy of ten. 

Alan made no answer at the time, but his conduct 
answered for him. Henceforth, it is to be thought,, 
he quite forgave himself for the affair at Cluny’s; 
cocked his hat again, walked jauntily, whistled airs, and 
looked at me upon one side with q provoking smile. 

The third night we were to pass through the western 
end of the country of Balquidder. It came clear and 
cold, with a touch in the air like frost, and a northerly 
wind that blew the clouds away and made the stars 
bright. The streams were full, of course, and still 
made a great noise among the hills ; but I observed 
that Alan thought no more upon the Kelpie and was 
in high good spirits. As for me, the change of weather 
came too late; I had lain in the mire so long that (as 
the Bible has it)* my very dlothes “abhorred me;” I 
was dead weary, deadly sick and full of pains and 
shiverings ; the chill of the wind went through me, 
and the sound of it confused my ears. In this poor 
state, I had to bear from my companion something in 
the nature of a persecution. He spoke a good deal, 
and never without a taunt. “Whig” was the best name 
he had to give me. “Here,” he would say, “here’s a 
dub 1 for ye to jump, my Whiggie ! I ken you’re a 
fine jumper!” And so on; all the time with a gibing 
voice and face. 

I know it was my own doing, and no one else’s; but 
1. Dul). A small pool of rain water. 


THE QUARREL 


243 


I was too miserable to repent. I felt I could drag 
myself but little farther; pretty soon, I must lie down 
and die on these wet mountains like a sheep or a fox, 
and my bones must whiten there like the bones of a 
beast. My head was light, perhaps ; but I began to 
love the prospect, I began to glory in the thought of 
such a death, alone in the desert, with the wild eagles 
besieging my last moments. Alan would repent then, 
I thought; he would remember, when I was dead, how 
much he owed me, and the remembrance would be tor- 
ture. So I went like a sick, silly, and bad-hearted 
schoolboy, feeding my anger against a fellow-man, 
when I w T ould have been better on my knees, crying on 
God for mercy. And at each, cf Alan’s taunts, I 
hugged myself. “Ah !” thinks I to myself, “I have a 
better taunt in readiness; when I lie down and die, you 
will feel it like a buffet in your face; ah, what a 
revenge! Ah, how you will regret -your ingratitude 
and cruelty!” 

All the while I was growing worse and worse. Once 
I had fallen, my legs simply doubling under me, and 
this had struck Alan for the moment; hut I was afoot 
so briskly, and set off again with such a natural manner, 
that he soon forgot the incident. Flushes of heat went 
over me, and then spasms of shuddering. The stitch 
in my side was hardly bearable. At last, I began to 
feel that I could trail myself no farther; and with that 
there came on me all at once the wish to have it out 
with Alan, let my anger blaze, and be done with my 
life in a more sudden manner. He had just called me 
“Whig.” I stopped.. 

“Mr. Stewart,” said I, in a voice that quivered like 
a fiddle-string, “you are older than I am, and should 
know your manners. Do you think it either very wise 
or very witty to cast my politics in my teeth ? I 


244 • 


KIDNAPPED 


thought,^ where folk differed, it was the part of gentle- 
men to differ civilly; and if I did not, I may tell you 
I could find a better taunt than some of yours/’ 

Alan had stopped opposite to me, his hat cocked, his 
hands in his breeches’ pockets, his head a little to one 
side. He listened, smiling evilly, as I could see by the 
starlight; and when I had done he began to whistle a 
Jacobite air. It was the air made in mockery of 
General Cope’s defeat at Preston Pans : 1 

“Hey, Johnnie Cope, are ye waukin’ yet? 

And are your drums a-beatin’ yet?” 

And it came in my mind that Alan, on the day of that 
battle, had been engaged upon the royal side. 

“Why do ye take thaf air, Mr. Stewart?” said I. 
“Is that to remind me that you have been beaten on 
both sides ?” 

The air stopped on Alan’s lips. “David !” said he. 

“But it’s time these manners ceased,” I continued; 
“and I mean that you shall henceforth speak civilly 
of my King and my good friends the Campbells.” 

“I am a Stewart ” began Alan. 

“O!” says I, “I ken ye bear a king’s name. But you 
are to remember, since I have been in the Highlands, 
I have seen a good many of those that bear it; and 
the best I can say of them is this, that they would be 
none the worse of washing.” 

“Do you know that you insult me?” said Alan, very 
low. 

“I am sorry for that,” said I, “for I am not done; 
and if you distaste the sermon, I doubt the pirliecue 2 
will please you as little. You have been chased in the 
field by the grown men of my party ; it seems a poor 

1. General Cope’s defeat at Preston Pans. See Historical Note, 
Introduction, page 27. 

2. Pirliecue. Second sermon, or a summing up. 


THE QUARREL 


245 


kind of pleasure to outface a boy. Both the Campbells 
and the Whigs have beaten you; you have run before 
them like a hare. It behooves you to speak of them as 
of your betters.” 

Alan stood quite still, the tails of his great-coat clap- 
ping behind him in the wind. 

“This is a pity,” he said, at last. “There are things 
said that cannot be passed over.” 

“I never asked you to,” said I. “I am as ready as 
yourself.” 

“Ready?” said he. 

“Ready,” I repeated. “I am no blower and boaster 
like some that I could name. Come on !” And draw- 
ing my sword, I fell on guard as Alan himself had 
taught me. 

“David!” he cried. “Are ye daft? I cannae draw 
upon ye, David. It’s fair murder.” 

“That was your look-out when you insulted me,” 
said I. 

“It’s the truth!” cried Alan, and he stood for a 
moment, wringing his mouth in his hand like a man in 
sore perplexity. “It’s the bare truth,” he said, and 
drew his sword. But before I could touch his blade 
with mine, he had thrown it from him and fallen to the 
ground. “Na, na,” he kept saying, “na, na — I cannae, 
I cannae.” 

At this the last of my anger oozed all out of me; 
and I found myself only sick, and sorry, and blank, 
and wondering at myself. I would have given the world 
to take back what I had said ; but a word once spoken, 
who can recapture it? I minded me of Alan’s kindness 
and courage in the past, how he had helped and cheered 
and borne with me in our evil davs; and then recalled 
my own insults, and saw that I had lost for ever that 
doughty friend. At the same time, the sickness that 
hung upon me seemed to redouble, and the pang in 


246 


KIDNAPPED 


my side was like a sword for sharpness. I thought I 
must have swooned where I stood. 

This it was that gave me a thought. No apology 
could blot out what I had said ; it was needless to think 
of one; none could cover the offence; but where an 
apology was vain, a mere cry for help might bring Alan 
back to my side. I put my pride away from me. 
“Alan!” I said; “if you cannae help me, I must just 
die here.” 

He started up sitting, and looked at me. 

.“It’s true,” said I. “I’m by with it. 0, let me get 
into the bield 1 of a house — I’ll can die there easier.” 
I had no need to pretend ; whether I chose or not, I 
spoke in a w r eeping voice that would have melted a 
heart of stone. 

“Can ye walk?” asked Ah 

“No,” said I, “not without help. This last hour, my 
legs have been fainting under me; I’ve a stitch in my 
side like a red-hot iron ; I cannae breathe right. If I 
die, ye’ll can forgive me, Alan? In my heart, J liked 
ye fine — even when I was the angriest.” 

“Wheesht, wheesht!” cried Alan. “Dinnae say that! 

David, man, ye ken ” He shut his mouth upon a 

sob. “Let me get my arm about ye,” he continued ; 
“that’s the way! Now lean upon me hard. Gude kens 
where there’s a house! We’re in Balwhidder, too; there 
should be no want of houses, no, nor friends’ houses 
here. Do you gang easier so, Davie?” 

“Ay,” said I, “I can be doing this way;” and I 
pressed his arm with my hand. 

■^Again he came near sobbing. “Davie,” said he, “I’m 
no a right man at all ; 2 I have neither sense nor kind- 
ness; I couldnae remember ye were just a bairn, I 

1. Bield. Shelter or lee. 

2. I’m no a right man at all. In a strongly affirmative sense; 
i. e., I am a wicked man. 


THE QUARREL 


247 


couldnae see ye were dying on your feet; Davie, ye’ll 
have to try and forgive me.” 

“O, man, let’s say no more about it !” said I. “We’re 
neither one of us to mend the other — that’s the truth! 
We must just bear and forbear, man Alan! O, but my 
stitch is sore ! Is there nae house P” 

“I’ll find a house to ye, David,” he said, stoutly. 
“We’ll follow down the burn, where there’s bound to 
be houses. My poor man, will ye no be better on my 
back ?” 

“O, Alan,” says I, “and me a good twelve inches 
taller?” 

“Ye’re no such a thing,” cried Alan, with a start. 
“There may be a trifling matter of an inch or two ; 
I’m no saying I’m just exactly what ye would call a 
tall man, whatever; and I daresay,” he added, his voice 
tailing off in a laughable manner, “now when I come 
.to think of it, I daresay ye’ll be just about right. 
Ay, it’ll be a foot, or near hand; or maybe even mair!” 

It was sweet and laughable to hear Alan eat his words 
up in the fear of some fresh quarrel. I could have 
laughed, had not my stitch caught me so hard; but 
if I had laughed, I think I must have wept, too. 

“Alan,” cried I, “what makes ye so good to me? 
What makes ye care for such a thankless fellow?” 

“Deed, and I don’t know,” said Alan. “For just 
precisely what I thought I liked about ye, was that 
ye never quarreled; — and now I like ye better!” 


Loj cJLo^p 

?r 

<JL 

*1 


CHAPTER XXV 


CVp- 


“4 x^w4 


IN BALQUIDDER 


At the door of the first house we came to, Alan 
knocked, which was no very safe enterprise in such a 
part of the Highlands as the Braes of Balquidder. No 
great clan held rule there ; it was filled and disputed 
by small septs , 1 and broken remnants, and what they 
call “chiefless folk,” driven into the wild country about 
the springs of Forth and Teith by the advance of the 
Campbells. Here were Stewarts and Maclarens, which 
came to the same thing, for the Maclarens followed 
Alan’s chief in war, and made but one clan with Appin. 
Here, too, were many of that old, proscribed, nameless, 
red-handed clan 2 of the Macgregors. They had always 
been ill considered, and now w T orse than ever, having 
credit with no side or party in the whole country of 
Scotland. Their chief, Macgregor of Macgregor, was 
in exile ; the more immediate leader of that part of them 
about Balquidder, James More, Rob Roy’s 3 eldest son, 
lay waiting his trial in Edinburgh Castle; they were in 
ill blood with Highlander and Lowlander, with the Gra- 
hames, the Maclarens and the Stewarts ; and Alan, who 
tdok up the quarrel of any friend, however distant, was 
extremely wishful to avoid them. 


1. Septs. Branches or divisions of a clan. 

2. Nameless, red-handed clan. By an act of the Privy Council 
in 1603, the name of Macgregor was abolished, and those who bore it 
were commanded to choose another. 

3. James More, Rob Roy’s eldest son. Rob Roy, or Red Rob, so 
called from the color of his hair, was Robert McGregor, or, according 
to the name which he assumed latkr, Robert McGregor-Campbell, a 
Scottish outlaw and freebooter who lived from 1671 to 1734. He 
appears in Scott’s novel, Rob Roy , 

248 


249 


IN BALQUIDDEE 

Chance served us very well; for it was a household 
of Maclarens that we found, where Alan was not only 
welcome for his name’s sake but known by reputation. 
Here, then, I was got to bed without delay, and a 
doctor fetched, who found me in a sorry plight. But 
whether because he was a very good doctor, or I a very 
i young, strong man, I lay bed-ridden for no more than 
a week, and before a month I was able to take the road 
| again with a good heart. 

All this time Alan would not' leave me.; though I 
often pressed him, and indeed his foolhardiness in stay- 
ing was a common subject of outcry with the two 
or three friends that were let into the secret. He hid 
by day in a hole of the braes irvler a little wood; and 
at night, when the coast was clear, would come into 
the house to visit me. I need not say if I was pleased 
to see him ; Mrs. Maclaren, our hostess, thought noth- 
ing good enough for such a guest; and as Duncan 
Dhu (which was the name of our host) had a pair of 
pipes in his house and was much of a lover of music, 
the time of my recovery was quite a festival, and we 
^ommonly turned night into day. 

* VThe soldiers let us be; although once a party of two 
companies and some dragoons went by in the bottom 
of the valley, where I could see them through the win- 
dow as I lay in bed. What was much more astonishing, 
no magistrate came near me, and there was no question 
put of whence I came or whither I was going; and in 
that time of excitement, I was as free of all inquiry as 
though I had lain in a desert. Yet my presence was 
known before I left to all the people in Balquidder 
and the adjacent parts; many coming about the house 
on visits, and these (-after the custom of the country) 
spreading the news among their neighbors. The bills, 
too, had now been printed. There was one pinned near 
the foot of my bed, where I could read my own not 



250 


KIDNAPPED 


very flattering portrait and, in larger characters, the 
amount of blood-money that had been set upon my life. 
Duncan Dhu and the rest that knew that I had come 
there in Alan’s company could have entertained no 
doubt of who I was ; and many others must have had 
their guess. For though I had changed my clothes, I 
could not change my age or person ; and Lowland boys 
of eighteen were not so rife in these parts of the world, 
and above all about that time, that they could fail to 
put one thing with another and connect me with the 
bill. So it was, at least. Other folk keep a secret 
among two or three near friends, and somehow it leaks 
out; but among these clansmen, it is told to a whole 
countryside, and they 'tvill keep it for a century. 

There was but one thing happened worth narrating; 
and that is the visit I had of Robin Oig, one of the 
sons of the notorious Rob Roy. He was sought upon 
all sides on a charge of carrying a young woman from 
Balfron and marrying her (as was alleged) by force; 
yet he stept about Balquidder like a gentleman in his 
own walled policy . 1 It was he who had shot James 
Maclaren at the plough stilts , 2 a quarrel never satisfied ; 
yet he walked into the house of his blood enemies as 
a rider 3 might into a public inn. 

Duncan had time to pass me word of who it was; 
and we looked at one another in concern. You should 
understand, it was then close upon the time of Alan’s 
coming; the two were little likely to agree; and yet if 
we sent word or sought to make a signal, it was sure 
to arouse suspicion in a man under so dark a cloud as 
the Macgregor. 

He came in with a great show of civility, but like a 
man among inferiors; took off his bonnet to Mrs. 

1. Policy. Pleasure grounds surrounding a gentleman’s residence. 

2. Plough stilts. Plough handles. 

3. Rider. Commercial traveler. 


IN BALQUIDDEH 


251 


Maclaren, but clapped it on his head again to speak to 
Duncan; and having thus set himself (as he would have 
thought) in a proper light, came to my bedside and 
bowed. 

| “I am given to know, sir,” says he, “that your name 
I is Balfour.” 

“They call me David Balfour,” said I, “at your 
service.” 

“I would give ye my name in return, sir,” he replied, 
“but it’s one somewhat blown upon of late days ; and 
it’ll perhaps suffice if I tell ye that I am own brother 
to James More Drummond, or Macgregor, of whom ye 
will scarce have failed to hear.” 

“No, sir,” said I, a little alarmed; “nor yet of your 
father, Macgregor-Campbell.” And I sat up and bowed 
in bed; for I thought best to compliment him, in case 
he was proud of having had an outlaw to his father. 

He bowed in return. “But what I am come to say, 

' sir,” he went on, “is this. In the year ’45, my brother 
raised a part of the ‘Gregara,’ 1 and marched six com- 
panies to strike a stroke for the good side; and the 
surgeon that marched with our clan and cured my 
brother’s leg when it was broken in the brush at Preston 
Pans, was a gentleman of the same name precisely as 
yourself. He was brother to Balfour of Baith; and 
if you are in any reasonable degree of nearness one of 
that gentleman’s kin, I have come to put myself and 
my people at your command.” 

You are to remember that I knew no more of my 
descent than any cadger’s dog; 2 my uncle, to be sure, * 
had prated of some of our high connections, but nothing 
to the present purpose: and there was nothing left 
me but that bitter disgrace of owning that L could not 
tell. / 

1. “Gregara” The members of the Macgregor clan. 

2. Cadger’s dog. A cadger is a traveling peddler or huckster. 


252 


KIDNAPPED 


Robin told me shortly he was sorry he had put 
himself about, turned his back upon me without a sign 
of salutation, and as he went toward the door, I could 
hear him telling Duncan that I was “only some kinless 
loon that didn’t know his own father.” Angry as I 
was at these words and ashamed of my own ignorance, 
I could scarce keep from smiling that a man who w r as 
under the lash of the law (and was indeed hanged some 
three years later) should be so nicfe as to the descent of 
his acquaintances. 

Just in the door, he met Alan coming in ; and the 
two drew back and looked at each other like strange 
dogs. They were neither of them big men, but they 
seemed fairly to swelf out with pride. Each wore a 
sword, and by a movement of his haunch, thrust clear 
the hilt of it, so that it might be the more readily grasped 
and the blade drawn. 

“Mr. Stewart, I am thinking,” says Robin. 

“Troth, Mr. Macgregor, it’s not a name to be ashamed 
of,” answered Alan. 

“I did not know ye were in my country, sir,” says 
Robin. 

“It sticks in my mind that I am in the country of 
my friends the Maclarens,” says Alan. 

“That’s a kittle point,” returned the other. “There 
may be two words to say to that. But I think I will 
have heard that you are a man of your sword?” 

“•Unless ye were born deaf, Mr. Macgregor, ye will 
have heard a good deal more than that,” says Alan. “I 
am not the only man that can draw steel in Appin ; and 
when my kinsman and captain, Ardshiel, had a talk with 
a gentleman of your name, not so many years back, I 
could never hear that the Macgregor had the best of it.” 

. “Do ye mean my father, sir?” says Robin. 

“Well, I wouldnae wonder,” said Alan. “The gentle- 


IN BALQU1DDER 


253 


man I have in mj min'd had the ill taste to clap Campbell 
to his name.” 

“My father was an old man,” returned Robin. “The 
match was unequal. You and me would make a better 
pair, sir.” 

“I was thinking that,” said Alan. 

I was half out of bed, and Duncan had been hanging 
at the elbow of these fighting cocks, ready to intervene 
upon the least occasion. But when that word was 
uttered, it was a case of now or never ; and Duncan, with 
something of a white face to be sure, thrust himself 
between. 

“Gentlemen,” said he, “I will have been thinking of 
a very different matter, whateffer. Here are my pipes, 
and here are you two gentlemen who are baith acclaimed 
pipers. It’s an auld dispute which one of ye’s the best. 
Here will be a braw chance to settle it.” 

“Why, sir,” said Alan, still addressing Robin, from 
whom indeed he had not so much as shifted his eyes, nor 
yet Robin from him, “why, sir,” says Alan, “I think I 
will have heard some sough of the sort. Have ye music, 
as folk say? Are ye a bit of a piper?” 

“I can pipe like a Macrimmon !” cries Robin. 

“And that is a very bold word,” quoth Alan. 

“I have made bolder words good before now,” returned 
Robin, “and that against better adversaries.” 

“It is easy to try that,” says Alan. 

Duncan Dhu made haste to bring out the pair of 
pipes that was his principal possession, and to set before 
his guests a muttonham and a bottle of that drink which 
they call Athole brose, and which is made of old whiskey, 
strained honey and sweet cream, slowly beaten together 
in the right order and proportion. The two enemies 
were still on the very breach of a quarrel; but down 
they sat, one upon each side of the peat fire, with a 


254 


KIDNAPPED 


mighty show of politeness. Maclaren pressed them to 
taste his muttonham and “the wife’s brose,” reminding 
them the wife was out of A thole and had a name far 
and wide for her skill in that confection. But Robin 
put aside these hospitalities as bad for the breath. 

“I would havk ye to remark sir,” said Alan, “that I 
havenae broken bread for near upon ten hours, w r hich 
will be w r orse for the breath than any brose in Scotland.” 

“I will take no advantages, Mr. Stew^art,” replied 
Robin. “Eat and drink ; I’ll follow you.” 

Each ate a small portion of the ham and drank a glass 
of the brose to Mrs. Maclaren ; and then, after a gyeat 
number of civilities, Robin took the pipes and played a 
little spring in a very tanting 1 manner. 

“Ay, ye can blow,” said Alan ; and taking the instru- 
ment from his rival, he first played the same spring in 
a manner identical with Robin’s ; and then wandered into 
variations, which, as he w^ent on, he decorated w r ith a 
perfect flight of grace-notes, such as pipers love, and 
call the “warblers.” 

I had been pleased with Robin’s playing, Alan’s 
ravished me. 

“That’s no very bad, Mr. Stew r art,” said the rival, 
“but ye show a poor device in your warbler.” 

“Me!” cried Alan, the blood starting to his face. “I 
give ye the lie.” 

“Do ye own yourself beaten at the pipes, then,” said 
Robin, “that ye seek to change them for the sword?” 

“And that’s very w r ell said, Mr. Macgregor,” returned 
Alan; “and in the meantime” (laying a strong accent 
on the word) “I take back the lie. I appeal to Duncan.” 

“Indeed, ye need appeal to naebody,” said Robin. 
“Ye’re a far better judge than any Maclaren in 
Balwhidder: for it’s a God’s truth that you’re a very 
creditable piper for a Stewart. Hand me the pipes.” 

1. Ranting. High-spirited. 


IN BALQUIDDEB 


255 


Alan did as he asked ; and Robin proceeded to imitate 
and correct some part of Alan’s variations, which it 
seemed that he remembered perfectly. 

“Ay, ye have music,” said Alan, gloomily. 

“And now be the judge yourself, Mr. Stewart,” said 
Robin ; and taking up the variations from the beginning, 
he worked them throughout to so new a purpose, with 
such ingenuity and sentiment, and with so odd a fancy 
and so quick a knack in the grace-notes, that I was 
amazed to hear him. 

As for Alan, his face grew dark and hot, and he sat 
and gnawed his fingers, like a man under some deep 
affront. “Enough!” he cried. “Ye can blow the pipes 
: — make the most of that.” And he made as if to rise. 

But Robin only held out his hand as if to ask for 
silence, and struck into the slow music of a pibroch . 1 
It was a fine piece of music in itself, and nobly played; 
but it seems besides it was a piece peculiar to the Appin 
v Stewarts and a chief favorite with Alan. The first notes 
were scarce out, before there came a change in his face; 
when the time quickened, he seemed to grow restless in 
his seat; and long before that piece was at an end, the 
last signs of his anger died from him, and he had no 
thought but for the music. 

“Robin Oig,” he said, when it was done, “ye are a 
great piper. I am not fit to blow in the same kingdom 
with ye. Body of me! ye have mair music in your 
sporran than I have in my head! And though it still 
sticks in my mind that I could maybe show ye another 
of it with the cold steel, I warn ye beforehand — it’ll no 
be fair! It would go against my heart to haggle 2 a 
man that can blow the pipes as you can !” 

Thereupon the quarrel was made up; all night long 
the brose was going and the pipes changing hands ; and 

1. Pibroch. A Highland air of martial character. 

2. Haggle. Hack. 


256 


KIDNAPPED 


the day had come pretty bright, and the three men were 
none the better for what they had been taking, before 
Robin as much as thought upon the road. 

It was the last I saw of him, for I was in the Low 
Countries at the University of Leyden, when he stood 
his trial, and was hanged in the Grassmarket. And I 
have told this at so great length,' partly because it was 
the last incident of any note that befell me on the wrong 
side of the Highland Line, and partly because (as the 
man came to be hanged) it’s in a manner history. 


V 


CHAPTER XXVI 

WE PASS THE FORTH 

The month, as I have said, was not yet out, but it 
was already far through August, and beautiful warm 
weather, with every sign of an early and great harvest, 
when I was pronounced able for my journey. Our 
money was now run to so low an ebb that we must think 
first of all on speed; for if we came not soon to Mr. 
Rankeillor’s, or if when we came there he should fail 
to help me, we must surely starve. In Alan’s view, 
besides, the hunt must have now greatly slackened ; and 
the line of the Forth, and even Stirling Bridge, which 
is the main pass over that river, would be watched with 
little interest. 

“It’s a chief principle in militaty affairs,” said he, 
“to go where ye are least expected. Forth is our trouble; 
ye ken the saying, “Forth bridles the wild Hielandman.’ 
Well, if we seek to creep round about the head of that 
river and come down by Kippen or Balfron, it’s just 
precisely there that they’ll be looking to lay hands on 
us. But if we stave 1 on straight to the auld Brig 
of Stirling , 2 I’ll lay my sword they let us pass 
unchallenged.” 

The first night, accordingly, we pushed to the house 
of a Maclaren in Strathire, a friend of Duncan’s, where 
we slept the twenty-first of the month, and whence we 
set forth again about the fall of night to make another 
easy stage. The twenty-second we lay in a heather-bush 
y y m a hillside in Uam Var, within view of a herd of deer, 

1. Stave. Push. 

2. Brig of Stirling. Stirling Bridge, mentioned a few lines above. 

257 


258 


KIDNAPPED 


the happiest ten hours of sleep in a fine, breathing sun- 
shine and on bone-dry ground, that I have ever tasted. 
That nighC we struck Allan Water, and followed it 
down ; and coming to the edge of the hills saw the whole 
Carse 1 of Stirling underfoot, as flat as a pancake, with 
the town and castle on a hill in the midst of it, and the 
moon shining on the Links of Forth . 2 

“Now,” said Alan, “I kenna if ye care, but ye’re in 
your own land again. We passed the Hieland Line in 
the first hour ; and now if we could but pass yon crooked 
water, we might cast our bonnets in the air.” 

In Allan Watei^, near by where it falls into the Forth, 
we found a little sandy islet, overgrown with burdock, 
butterbur, and the like low plants, that would just cover, 
us if we lay flat. Here it was we made our camp, within 
plain view of Stirling Castle, whence we could hear the 
drums beat as some part of the garrison paraded. 
Shearers worked all day in a field, on one side of the 
river, and we could hear the stones going on the hooks 3 
and the voices and even the words of the men talking. 
It behooved to lie close and keep silent. But the sand 
of the little isle was sun-warm, the green plants gave us 
shelter for our heads, we had food and drink in plenty ; 
and to crown all, we w T ere within sight of safety. 

As soon as the shearers quit their work and the dusk 
began to fall, we waded ashore and struck for the Bridge 
of Stirling, keeping to the fields and under the field 
fences. 

The bridge is close under the castle hill, an old, high, 
narrow bridge with pinnacles along the parapet; and 
you may conceive with how much interest I looked upon 
it, not only as a place famous in history, but as the very 

1. Carse. A stretch of flat intervale beside a river. 

2. Links of Forth. A “links” is a flat or undulating stretch of 
land more or less covered with grass or heather. 

3. Stones going on the hooks. Whetstones striking against the 
reaping hooks. 


WE PASS THE FORTH 


259 


doors of salvation to Alan and myself. The moon was 
not yet up when we came there ; a few lights shone 
along the front of the fortress, and lower down a few 
lighted windows in the town ; but it was all mighty still, 
and there seemed to be no guard upon the passage. 

I was for pushing straight across ; but Alan was more 
wary. 

“It looks unco’ quiet,” said he; “but for all that 
we’ll lie down here cannily behind a dyke, and make 
sure.” 

So we lay for about a quarter of an hour, whiles 
whispering, whiles lying still and hearing nothing earthly 
but the washing of the water on the piers. At last there 
came by an old, hobbling woman with a crutch stick ; 
who first stopped a little, close to where we lay, and 
bemoaned herself and the long way she had traveled; 
and then set forth again up the steep spring of the 
bridge. The woman was so little, and the night still 
so dark, that we soon lost sight of her; only heard the 
sound of her steps, and her stick, and a cough that she 
had by fits, draw slowly farther away. 

“She’s bound to be across now,” I whispered. 

“Na,” said Alan, “her foot still sounds boss 1 upon 
the bridge.” 

And just then — “Who goes?” cried a voice, and we 
heard the butt of a musket rattle on the stones. I must 
suppose the sentry had been sleeping, so that had we 
tried, we might have passed unseen; but he was awake 
now, and the chance forfeited. 

“This’ll never do,” said Alan. “This’ll never, never 
do for us, David.” 

And without another word, he began to crawl away 
through the fields ; and a little after, being well out of 
eyeshot, got to his feet again, and struck along a road 
that led to the eastward. I could not conceive what he 
1. Boss. Hollow. 


260 


KIDNAPPED 


was doing; and indeed I was so sharply cut by the dis- j 
appointment that I was little likely to be pleased with | 
anything. A moment back, and I had seen myself j 
knocking at Mr. Rankeillor’s door to claim my inherit- 
ance, like a hero in a ballad; and here was I back again, 
a wandering, hunted blackguard on the wrong side of 
Forth. 

“Well?” said I. 

“Well,” said Alan, “what would ye have? They’re 
none such fools as I took them for. We have still the 
Forth to pass, Davie — weary fall the rains that fed and 
the hillsides that guided it!” 

“And why go east?” said I. 

“Ou, just upon the chance,!” said he. “If we cannae 
pass the river, we’ll hav£ to see what we can do for the 
firth.” 

“There are fords upon the river, and none upon the 
firth,” said I. 

“To be sure there are fords, and a bridge forbye,” 
quoth Alan ; “and of what service when they are 
watched ?” 

“Well,” said I, “but a river can be swum.” 

“By them that have the skill of it,” returned he; 
“but I have yet to hear that either you or me is much 
of a hand at that exercise; and for my own part, I swim 
like a stone.” 

“I’m not up to you in talking back, Alan,” I said; 
“but I can see we’re making bad worse. If it’s hard to 
pass a river, it stands to reason it must be worse to pass 
a sea.” 

“But there’s such a thing as a boat,” says Alan, “or 
I’m the more deceived.” 

“Ay, and such a thing as money,” says I. “But for 
us that have neither one nor other, they might just as 
well not have been invented.” 

“Ye think so?” said Alan. 


WE PASS THE FORTH 


261 


“I do that,” said I. 

“David,” says he, “ye’re a man of small invention and 
less faith. But let me set my wits upon the hone, and 
if I cannae beg, borrow, nor yet steal a boat, I’ll make 
one !” 

“I think I see ye !” said I. “And what’s more than all 
that : if ye pass a bridge, it can tell no tales ; but if we 
pass the firth, there’s the boat on the wrong side — some- 
body must have brought it — the countryside will all be 
in a bizz 1 ” 

“Man!” cried Alan, “if I make a boat, I’ll make a 
body to take it back again ! So deave 2 me with no more 
of your nonsense, but walk (for that’s what you’ve got 
to do) — and let Alan thi?ik |or ye.” 

All night, then, w T e w r alked through the north side of 
the Carse under the high line of the Ochil mountains ; 
and by Alloa and Clackmannan tind Culross, all of which 
we avoided ; and about ten in the morning, mighty 
hungry and tired, came to the little clachan of Lime- 
kilns. This is a place that sits near in by the waterside, 
and looks across the Hope to the town of the Queens- 
ferry. Smoke w r ent up from both of these, and from other 
villages and farms upon all hands. The fields were being 
reaped; two ships lay anchored, and boats were coming 
and going on the Hope. It was altogether a right pleas- 
ant sight to me ; and I could not take my fill of gazing 
at these comfortable, green, cultivated hills and the busy 
people both of the field and sea. 

For all that, there was Mr. Rankeillor’s house on the 
south shore, where I had no doubt w T ealth awaited me; 
and here was I upon the north, clad in poor enough 
attire of an outlandish fashion, with three silver shillings 
left to me of all my fortune, a price set upon my head, 
and an outlawed man for my sole company. 

“O, Alan !” said I, “to think of it ! Over there, there’s 

1. Bizz. Buzz. 2. Deave. Deafen. 


262 


KIDNAPPED 


all that heart could want waiting me; and the birds go 
over, and the boats go over — all that please can go, but 
just me only! O, man, but it’s a heartbreak!” 

In Limekilns we entered a small change-house, which 
we only knew to be a public by the wand over the door , 1 
and bought some bread and cheese from a good-looking 
lass that was the servant. This we carried with us in a 
bundle, meaning to sit and eat it in a bush of wood on 
the seashore, that we saw T some third part of a mile in 
front. As we went, I kept looking across the water and 
sighing to myself ; and though I took no heed of it, 
Alan had fallen into a muse. At last he stopped in 
the way. 

“Did ye take heed erf the lass we bought this of?” 
says he, tapping on the bread and cheese. 

“To be sure,” said I, “and a bonny lass sbe was.” 

“Ye thought that?” cries he. “Man David, that’s 
good news.” 

“In the name of all that’s wonderful, why so?” says I. 
“What good can that do?” 

“Well,’* said Alan, with one of his droll looks, “I was 
rather in hopes it would maybe get us that boat.” 

“If it were the. other way about, it would be liker it,” 
said I. 

“That’s all that you ken, ye see,” said Alan. “I don’t 
want the lass to fall in love with ye, I want her to be 
sorry for ye, David ; to which end, there is no manner 
of need that she should take you for a beauty. Let me 
see” (looking me curiously over). “I wish ye were a 
wee thing paler; but apart from that ye’ll do fine for 
my purpose — ye have a fine, hang-dog, rag-and-tatter, 
clappermaclaw 2 kind of a look to ye, as if ye had stolen 

1. Wand over the door. A bough or twig placed above the door 
of a public house or tavern to indicate that wine was sold there. 
Cf. the expression, “Good wine needs no bush.” As You Like It. 

2. Clappermaclaic. The same as clapperclawed, i. e., scratched 
with finger nails. 


WE PASS THE FORTH 


263 


I the coat from a potato-bogle. 1 Come; right about, and 
back to the change-house for that boat of ours.” 

I followed him laughing. 

“David Balfour,” said he, “ye’re a very funny gen- 
tleman by your way of it, and this is a very funny 
employ for ye, no doubt. For all that, if ye have any 
affection for my neck (to say nothing of your own) 
ye will perhaps be kind enough to take this matter 
responsibly. 1 am going to do a bit of play-acting, the 
i bottom ground of which is just exactly as serious as the 
gallows for the pair of’ us. So bear it, if ye please, in 
mind, and conduct yourself according.” 

“Well, well,” said I, “have it as you will.” 

As we got near the cjachan* he made me take his 
: arm and hang upon it like'Vne almost helpless with 
weariness ; and by the time he ^pushed open the change- 
house door, he seemed to be half carrying me. The 
maid appeared surprised (as well she might be) at our 
speedy return; but Alan had no words to spare for her 
in explanation, helped me to a chair, called for a tass 2 
of brandy with which he fed me in little sips, and then 
breaking up the bread and cheese helped me to eat it 
like a nursery-lass ; the whole with that grave, concerned, 
affectionate countenance, that might have imposed upon 
a judge. It was small wonder if the maid were taken 
with the picture we presented, of a poor, sick, over- 
wrought lad and his most tender comrade. She drew 
quite near, and stood leaning with her back on the next 
table. 

“What’s like wrong with him?” said she at last. 

Alan turned upon her, to my great wonder, with a 
kind of fury. “Wrong?” cries he. “He’s walked more 
hundreds of miles than he has hairs upon his chin, and 
slept oftener in wet heather than dry sheets. Wrong, 

1. Potato-bogle. A scarecrow set in a potato field. 

2. Tass. Cup. 


264 


KIDNAPPED 


quo’ she! Wrong enough, I would think! Wrong, 
indeed !’•’ and he kept grumbling to himself, as he fed me, 
like a man ill pleased. 

“He’s young for the like of that,” said the maid. 

“Ower young,” said Alan, with his back to her. 

“He would be better riding,” says she. 

“And where could I get a horse for him?” cried Alan, 
turning on her with the same appearance of fury. 
“Would ye have me steal?” 

I thought this roughness would have sent her off in 
dudgeon, as indeed it closed her mouth for the time. 
But my companion knew very well what he was doing ; 
and for as simple as he was in some things of life, had 
a great fund of roguishpess in such affairs as these. 

“Ye neednae tell me,” s(^e said at last — “ye’re gentry.” 

“Well,” said Alan, softened a little (I believe against 
his will) by this artless comment, “and suppose we were? 
did ever you hear that gentrice 1 put money in folk’s 
pockets ?” 

She sighed at this, as if she were herself some dis- 
inherited great lady. “No,” says she, “that’s true 
indeed.” 

I was all this while chafing at the part I played, and 
sitting tongue-tied between shame and merriment; but 
somehow at this I could hold in no longer, and bade 
Alan let me be, for I was better already. My voice 
stuck in my throat, for I ever hated to take part in 
lies; but my very embarrassment helped on the plot, 
for the lass no doubt set down my husky voice to sickness 
and fatigue. 

“Has he nae friends?” said she, in a tearful voice. 

“That has he so,” cried Alan, “if we could but win 
to them! — friends and rich friends, beds to lie in, food 
to eat, doctors to see him — and here he must tramp 
in the dubs and sleep in the heather like a beggarman.” 

1. Gentrice. Gentility, good birth. 


WE PASS THE FORTH 


265 


“And why that?” says the lass. 

• “My dear,” says Alan, “I cannae very safely say; 
but I’ll tell ye what I’ll do instead,” says he, “I’ll whistle 
ye a bit tune.” And with that he leaned pretty far over 
the table, and in a mere breath of a whistle, but with a 
wonderful pretty sentiment, gave her a few bars of 
“Charlie is my darling .” 1 

“Wheesht!” says she, and looked over her shoulder to 
the door. 

“That’s it,” said Alan. 

“And him so young!” cried the lass. ' 

“He’s old enough to ” and Alan struck his fore- 

finger on the back part of his neck, meaning that I was 
old enough to lose my head*.., 

“It would be a black shame,” she cried, flushing high. 

“It’s what will be, though,” said Alan, “unless we 
manage the better.” * 

At this the lass turned and ran out of that part of 
the house, leaving us alone together, Alan in high good 
humor at the furthering of his schemes, and I in bitter 
dudgeon at being called a Jacobite and treated like a 
child. 

“Alan,” I cried, “I can stand no more of this.” 

“Ye’ll have to sit it then, Davie,” said he. “For if ye 
upset the pot now, ye may scrape your own life out of 
the fire, but .Alan Breck is a dead man.” 

This was so true that I could only groan ; and even 
my groan served Alan’s purpose, for it was overheard 

1. “Charlie is my darling.” A Jacobite song with the refrain : 

“And Charlie, he’s my darling ! 

My darling ! my darling ! 

And Charlie, he’s my darling : 

The young Chevalier !” 

^Jan thus tries to create the impression that David is an adherent 
of the Pretender, Charles Edward. 


266 


KIDNAPPED 


by the lass as she came flying in again with a dish of 
white puddings and a bottle of strong ale. 

“Poor lamb !” says she, and had no sooner set the 
meat before us, than she touched me on the shoulder 
with a little friendly touch, as much as to bid me cheer 
up. Then she told us to fall to, and there would be 
no more to pay ; for the inn w T as her own, or at least 
her father’s, and he was gone for the day to Pittencrieff. 
We waited for no second bidding, for bread and cheese 
is but cold comfort, and the puddings smelt excellently 
well; and while we sat and ate, she took up that same 
place by the next table, looking on, and thinking, and 
frowning to herself, and drawing the string of her 
apron through her hand. ^ ‘ 

“I’m thinking ye have rather a long tongue,” she said 
at last to Alan. 

“Ay,” said Alan ; *‘but ye see I ken the folk I speak 
to.” 

“I would never betray ye,” said she, “if ye mean that.” 

“No,” said he, “ye’re no that kind. But I’ll tell ye 
what ye would do, ye would help.” 

“I couldnae,” said she, shaking her head. “Na, I 
couldnae.’’ 

“No,” said he, “but if ye could?” 

She answered him nothing. 

“Look here, my lass,” said Alan, “there are boats in 
the kingdom of Fife, for I saw two (no less) upon the 
beach, as I came in by your town’s end. Now, if we 
could have the use of a boat to pass under cloud of 
night into Lothian, and some secret, decent kind of a 
man to bring that boat back again and keep his council, 
there would be two souls saved — mine to all likelihood — 
his to a dead surety. If we lack that boat, we have but 
three shillings left in this wide world ; and where to 
go, and how to do, and what other place there is for 
us except the chains of a gibbet — I give you my naked 


WE PASS THE FORTH 


267 


word, I kenna! Shall we go wanting, lassie? Are ye 
to lie in your warm bed and think upon us, when the 
wind gowls 1 in the chimney and the rain tirls 2 on the 
roof? Are ye to eat your meat by the cheeks of a red 
fire, and think upon this poor sick lad of mine, biting 
his finger-ends on a blae muir 3 for cauld and hunger? 
Sick or sound, he must aye be moving; with the death- 
grapple at his throat, he must aye be trailing in the 
rain on the lang roads ; and when he gants his last on 
a rickle of cauld stanes , 4 there will be nae friends near 
him but only me and God.” 

At this appeal, I could see the lass was in great 
trouble of mind, being tempted to help us, and yet in 
some fear she might be helping malefactors ; and so now 
JL determined to step in myself and to allay her scruples 
with a portion of the truth. 

“Did you ever hear,” said I, “of Mr. Rankeillor of 
the Queensferrv?” 

“Rankeillor the writer ?” 5 said she. “I daursay that!” 

“Well,” said I, “it’s to his door that I am bound, so 
you may judge by that if I am an ill-doer; and I will 
tell you more, that though I am indeed; by a dreadful 
error, in some peril of my life, King George has no 
truer friend in all Scotland than myself.” 

.Her face cleared up mightily at this, although Alan’s 
darkened. 

“That’s more than I would ask,” said she. “Mr. Ran- 
keillor is a kennt man.” And she bade us finish our meat, 
get clear of the clachan as soon as might be, and lie 
close in the bit wood on the sea-beach. “And ye can trust 
me,” says she, “I’ll find some means to put you over.” 

1. Gowls. Howls. 

2. Tirls. Makes a rattling noise. 

3. Blae muir. A moor livid in color. 0 

4. Gants his last on a rickle of cold stanes. Gasps his last on 
a heap of cold stones. 

5. Writer. Attorney. 


268 


KIDNAPPED 


At this we waited for no more, but shook hands with 
her upon the bargain, made short work of the puddings, 
and set forth again from Limekilns as far as to the 1 
wood. It was a small piece of perhaps a score of elders 
and hawthorns, and a few young ashes, not thick enough 
to veil us from passers-by upon the road or beach. Here j 
we must lie, however, making the best of the brave warm 
weather and the good hopes we now had of a deliv- 
erance, and planning more particularly what remained 
for us to do. * 

We had but one trouble all day: when a strolling 
piper came and sat in the same wood with us ; a red- 
nosed, blear-eyed, drunken dog, with a gr'eat bottle of 
whiskey in his pocket, apd a lpng story of wrongs that 
had been done him by all. sorts of persons, from the 
Lord President of the Court of Session who had denied 
him justice, down to the Baillies 1 of Inverkeithing who 
had given him moce of it than he desired. It was impos- 
sible but he should conceive some suspicion of two men 
lying all day concealed in a thicket and having no 
business to allege. As long as he stayed there, he kept 
us in hot water with prying questions; and after he 
was gone, as he was a man not very likely to hold his 
tongue, we were in the greater impatience *to be gone 
ourselves. 

The day came to an end with the same brightness ; 
the night fell quiet and clear; lights came out in houses 
and hamlets and then, one after another, began to be j 
put out ; but it was past eleven, and we were long since 
strangely tortured with anxieties, before we heard the 
grinding of oars upon the rowing-pins. At that, we 
looked out and saw the lass herself coming rowing to us 
in a boat. She had trusted no one with our affairs, not 
even her sweetheart, if she had one ; but as soon as her 

1. Baillies. Bailiffs, magistrates who formerly had functions ’ 
somewhat resembling those of a sheriff. 


WE PAS 8 THE FORTH 


269 


father was asleep, had left the house by a window, stolen 
a neighbor’s boat, and come to our assistance single-- 
handed. 

I was abashed how to find expression for my thanks; 
but she was no less abashed at the thought of hearing 
them ; begged us to lose no time and to hold our peace, 
saying (very properly) that the heart of our matter 
was in haste and silence ; and so, what with one thing 
and another, she had set us on the Lothian shore not far 
from Carriden, had shaken hands with us, and was out 
again at sea and rowing for Limekilns, before there was 
one word said either of her service or our gratitude. 

Even after she was gone we had nothing to say, as 
indeed nothing was enough f,or such a kindness. Only 
Alan stood a great while upon the shore shaking his 
head. 

“It is a very fine lass,” he said at last. “David, it 
is a very fine lass.” And a matter of an hour later, 
as we were lying in a den on the seashore and I had been 
already dozing, he broke out again in commendations 
of her character. For my part, I could say nothing; 
she was so simple a creature that my heart smote me 
both with remorse and fear; remorse, because we had 
traded upon her ignorance; and fear, lest we should have 
any way involved her in the dangers of our situation. 


CHAPTER XXVII 


* 

I COME TO MR. RANKEILLOR 

The next day it was agreed that Alan should fend 
for himself till sunset ; but as soon as it began to grow 
dark, he should lie in the fields by the roadside near to 
Newhalls, and stir for naught until he heard me whistling. , 
At first, I proposed I should give him for a signal the 
“Bonnie House of Airlie,” which was a favorite of mine; 
but he objected that as the piece was very commonly 
known, any ploughman might whistle it by accident; 
and taught me instead a^ little ^fragment of a Highland 
air, which has run in my^iead from that day to this, 
and will likely run in my head when I lie dying. Every 
time it comes to me it takes me off to that last day of 
my uncertainty, w T ith Alan sitting up in the bottom of . 
the den, whistling and beating the measure w T ith a finger, 
and the gray of the daw r n coming on his face. 

I was in the long street of Queensferry before the sun 
was up. It w 7 as a fairly built burgh, the houses of good 
stone, many slated; the town-hall not so fine, I thought, 
ag that of Peebles, nor yet the street so noble; but take 
it altogether, it put me to shame for my foul tatters. 

As the morning w r ent on, and the fires began to be 
kindled, and the windows to open, and the people to 
appear out of the houses, my concern and despondency 
grew T ever the blacker. I saw now^ that I had no grounds 
to stand upon; and no clear proof of my rights, nor so 
much as of my own identity. If it was all a bubble, I 
was indeed sorely cheated and left in a sore pass. Even 
if things w^ere as I conceived, it would in all likelihood 
take time to establish my contentions; and what time 
had I to spare with less than three shillings in my pocket, 


I GOME TO MR. RANKEILLOR 


271 


and a condemned, hunted man upon my hands to ship 
out of the country? Truly, if my hope broke with me, it 
might come to the gallows yet for both of us. And 
as I continued to walk up and down, and saw people 
looking askance at me upon the street or out of windows, 
and nudging or speaking one to another with smiles, I 
began to take fresh apprehension ; that it might be no 
easy matter even to come to speech of the lawyer, far 
less to convince him of my story. 

For the life of me I could not muster up the courage 
to address any of these reputable burghers; I thought 
shame even to speak with them in such a pickle of rags 
and dirt; and if I had asked for the house of such a 
man as Mr. Rankeillor, , I supposed they would have 
burst out laughing in my fad£. So I went up and down, 
and through the street, and down to the harbor-side, 
like a dog that has lost its master, with a strange gnaw- 
ing in my inwards, and every now and then a movement 
of despair. It grew to be high day at last, perhaps nine 
in the forenoon ; and I was worn with these wanderings, 
and chanced to have stopped in front of a very good 
house on the landward side, a house with beautiful, clear 
glass windows, flowering knots upon the sills, the walls 
new-harled, 1 and a chase-dog sitting yawning on the 
step like one that was at home. Well, I was even envy- 
ing this dumb brute, when the door fell open and there 
issued forth a little shrewd, ruddy, kindly, consequential 
man in a well-powdered wig and spectacles. I was in 
such a plight that no one set eyes on me once, but he 
looked at me again; and this gentleman, as it proved, 
was so much struck with my poor appearance that he 
came straight up to me and asked me what I did. 

I told him I was come to the Queensferry on business, 
and taking heart of grace, asked him to direct me to the _ 
house of Mr. Rankeillor. 

1. Keiv-harled. Newly rough-cast. 


272 


KIDNAPPED 




“Why,” said he, “that is his house that I have just 
come out of; and for a rather singular chance, I am 
that , very man.” 

“Then, sir,” said I, “I have to beg the favor of an 
interview.” 

“I do not know your name,” said he, “nor yet your face.” 

“My name is David Balfgur,” said I. 

“David Balfour?” he repeated, in rather a high tone, 
like one surprised. “And where have you come from, 
Mr. David Balfour?” he asked, looking me pretty drily 
in the face. 

“I have come from a great many strange places, sir,” 
said I; “but I think it would be as well to tell you 
where and how in a more private manner.” 

He seemed to muse a wlihle, holding his lip in his hand, 
and looking now at me and now upon the causeway of 
the street. 

“Yes,” says he, “that will be the best, no doubt.” And 
he led me back with him into his house, cried out to some 
one whom I could not see that he would be engaged 
all morning, and brought me into a little dusty chamber 
full of books* and documents. Here he sate down, and 
bade me be seated; though I thought he looked a little 
ruefully from his clean chair to my muddy rags. “And 
now,” says he, “if you have any business, pray be brief 
and come swiftly to the point. Nec gemino bellum Tro- 
janum orditur ab ovo 1 — do you understand that?” says 
he, with a keen look. 

“I will even do as Horace says, sir,” I answered, 
smiling, “and carry you in medias res ” 2 He nodded 

1. Nec gemino bellum Trojanum orditur ab ovo. “Nor does the 
Trojan war (i. e., Homer’s account of it in the Iliad ) begin with the 
twin eggs.” From one of the “twin eggs” alluded to by Horace in his 
Art of Poetry, from which this and the following quotation are taken, 
was born Helen, the cause of the Trojan war. Homer, according to 
Horace, does not begin his story so far back, but hurries the reader 
“into the midst of events.” 

2. In medias res. Into the midst of events. 


273 


1 GOME TO MR. RANKEILLOR 

as if he was well pleased, and indeed his scrap of Latin 
had been set to test me. For all that, and though I was 
somewhat encouraged, the blood came in my face when 
I added: “I have reason to believe myself some rights 
on the estate of Shaws.” 

He got a paper book out of a drawer and set it before 
him open. “Well?” said he. 

But I had shot my bolt and sat speechless. 

“Come, come, Mr. Balfour,” said he, “you must 
continue. Where were you born?” 

“In Essendean, sir,” said I, “in the year 1731, the 
12th of March.” 

He seemed to follow this statement in his paper book; 
but what that meant I knew not. “Your father and 
mother?” said he. h 

“My father was Alexander Balfour, schoolmaster of 
that place,” said I, “and my mother Grace Pitarrow ; 
I think her people were from Angus.” 

“Have you any papers proving your identity?” asked 
Mr. Rankeillor. 

“No, sir,” said I, “but they are in the hands of Mr. 
Campbell, the minister, and could be readily produced. 
Mr. Campbell, too, would give me his word; and for 
that matter, I do not think my uncle would deny me.” 

“Meaning Mr. Ebenezer Balfour?” says he. 

“The same,” said I. 

“Whom you have seen?” he asked. 

“By whom I was received into his own house,” I 
answered. 

“Did you ever meet a man of the name of Hoseason ?” 
asked Mr. Rankeillor. 

“I did so, sir, for my sins,” said I; “for it was by his 
means and the procurement of my uncle, that I was 
kidnapped within sight of this town, carried to sea, suf- 
fered shipwreck and a hundred other hardships, and 
stand before you today in this poor accoutrement.” 


274 


KIDNAPPED 


“You say }^ou were shipwrecked,”/ said Rankeillor; 
“where was that?” 

“Off the south end of the Isle of Mull,” said I. “The 
name of the isle on which I was cast up is the Island 
Earraid.” 

“Ah!” said he, smiling, “you are deeper than me in 
the geography. But so far, I may tell you, this agrees 
pretty exactly with other informations that I hold. But 
you say you were kidnapped ; in what sense ?” 

“In the plain meaning of the word, sir,” said I. “I 
was on my way to your house, when I was trepanned 
on board the brig, cruelly struck down, thrown below, 
and knew no more of anything till we were far at sea. 
I was destined for the plantations; a fate that, in God’s 
providence, I have escaped?” 

“The brig was lost on June the 27th,” says he, looking 
in his book, “and we are now at August the 24th. Here 
is a considerable hiatus, Mr. Balfour, of near upon two 
months. It has already caused a vast amount of trouble 
to your friends; and I own I shall not be very well 
contented until it is set right.” 

“Indeed, sir,” said I, “these months are very easily 
filled up ; but yet before I told my story, I would be 
glad to know that I was talking to a friend.” 

“This is to argue in a circle,” said the lawyer. “I 
cannot be convinced till I have heard you. I cannot be 
your friend until I am properly informed. If you were 
more trustful, it would better befit your time of life. 
And you know, Mr. Balfour, we have a proverb in the 
country that evil-doers are aye evil-dreaders.” 

“You are not to forget, sir,” said I, “that I have 
already suffered by my trustfulness; and was shipped 
off to be a slave by the very man that (if I rightly 
understand) is your employer.” 

All this while I had been gaining ground w r ith Mr. 
Rankeillor, and in proportion as I gained ground, gain- 


1 COME TO MR. RANKEILLOR 


275 




ing confidence. But at this sally, which I made with 
something of a smile myself, he fairly laughed aloud. 

“No, no,” said he, “it is not so bad as that. Fui, non 
sum . 1 I was indeed your uncle’s man of business; but 
while you ( imberbis juvenis custode remoto 2 ) were galli- 
vanting in the west, a good deal of water has run under 
the bridges; and if your ears did not sing, it was not for 
lack of being talked about. On the very day of- your 
sea disaster, Mr. Campbell stalked into my office, demand- 
ing you from all the winds. I had never heard of your 
existence; but I had known your father; and from 
matters in my competence (to be touched upon here- 
after) I was disposed to fear the worst. Mr. Ebenezer 
admitted having seen you ; . declared (w T hat seemed im- 
probable) that he had given you considerable sums; and 
that you had started for the continent of Europe, 
intending to fulfil your education, which was probable 
and praiseworthy. Interrogated how you had come to 
send no word to Mr. Campbell, he deponed that you had 
expressed a great desire to break with your past life. 
Farther interrogated where you now were, protested 
ignorance, but believed you were in Leyden. That is a 
close sum of his replies. I am not exactly sure that 
any one believed him,” continued Mr. Rankeillor with a 
smile; “and in particular he so much disrelished some 
expressions of mine that (in a word) he showed me to the 
door. We w r ere then at a full stand; for whatever 
shrewd suspicions we might entertain, w r e had no shadow' 
of probation . 3 In the very article , 4 comes Captain 
Hoseason with the story of your drowning; whereupon 

1. Fui, non sum. I was, but I am not now. 

2. Imberbis juvenis custode remoto. More fully, the quotation 
from Horace is: “Imberbis juvenis tandem custode remoto gaudet 
equis canibusque.” The beardless youth, his tutor finally dismissed, 
finds pleasure in horses and hounds. 

3. Probation. Proof. 

4. In the very article. At the very moment. Cf. “In the article 
of death,” i. e., “at the very moment of death.” 


276 


KIDNAPPED 


all fell through; with no consequences but concern to 
Mr. Campbell, injury to my pocket, and another blot • 
upon your uncle’s character, which could very ill afford ] 
it. And now, Mr. Balfour,” said he, “you understand i 
the whole process of these matters, and can judge for 
yourself to what extent I may be trusted.” 

Indeed he w T as more pedantic than I can represent 
him, and placed more scraps of Latin in his speech ; 
but it was all uttered w 7 ith a fine geniality of eye and 
manner which went far to conquer my distrust. More- 
over, I could see he now treated me as if I was myself 
beyond a doubt ; so that first point of my identity 
seemed fully granted. 

“Sir,” said I, “if I tell you my story, I must commit 
a friend’s life to your discretion. Pass me your word 
it shall be sacfed; and for what touches myself, I will 
ask no better guarantee than just your face.” 

He passed me his word very seriously. “But,” said he, 
these are rather alarming prolocutions; and if there are 
in your story any little jostles to the law 7 , 1 would beg you j 
to bear in mind that I am a lawyer, and pass lightly.” 

Thereupon I told him my story from the first, he 
listening with his spectacles thrust up and his. eyes closed, 
so that I sometimes feared he was asleep. But no such 
matter! he heard every word (as I found afterwards) 
with such quickness of hearing and precision of memory 
as often surprised me. Even strange, outlandish Gaelic 
names, heard for that time only, he remembered and 
would remind me of years after. Yet when I called 
Alan Breck in full, we had an odd scene. The name of 
Alan had of course rung through Scotland, with the 
news of the Appin murder and the offer of the reward; 
and it had no sooner escaped me than the lawyer moved j 
in his seat and opened his eyes. 

“I would name no unnecessary names, Mr. Balfour,” 


J GOME TO MR. RANKEILLOR' 


277 


said he ; “above all of Highlanders, many of whom are 
obnoxious to the law.” 

“Well, it might have been better not,” said I; “but 
since I have let it slip, I may as well continue.” 

“Not at all,” $aid Mr. Rankeillor. “I am somewhat 
dull of hearing, as you may have remarked; and I am 
far from sure I caught the name exactly. We will call 
your friend, if you please, Mr. Thomson — that there 
may be no reflections. And in future, I would take some 
such way with any Highlander that you may have to 
mention — dead or alive.” 

By this, I saw he must have heard the name all too 
clearly and had already guessed I might be coming to 
the murder. If he chose* to ^l{iy this part of ignorance, 
it was no matter of mine; so I smiled, said it was no 
very Highland sounding name, and consented. Through 
all the rest of my story Alan was Mr. Thomson ; which 
amused me the more, as it was a piece of policy after his 
own heart. James Stewart, in like manner, was men- 
tioned under the style of Mr. Thomson’s kinsman ; 
Colin Campbell passed as a Mr. Glen; and to Cluny, 
when I came to that part of my tale, I gave the name of 
“Mr. Jameson, a Highland chief.” It was truly the 
most open farce, and I wondered that the lawyer should 
care to keep it up ; but after all it was quite in the taste 
of that age, when there were two parties in the state, and 
quiet persons, with no very high opinions of their own, 
sought out every cranny to avoid offence to either. 

“Well, w r ell,” said the lawyer, when I had quite done, 
“this is a great epic, a great Odyssey of yours. You 
must tell it, sir, in a sound Latinity when your scholar- 
ship is riper; or in English, if you please, though for 
my part I prefer the stronger tongue. You have rolled 
much; quce regio in terris 1 — what parish in Scotland (to 

1. Quae regio in terris. What region on „earth. 


278 


KIDNAPPED 


make a homely translation) has not been filled with your 
wanderings? You have shown besides a singular apti- 
tude for getting into false positions; and, yes, upon the 
whole, for behaving well in them. This Mr. Thomson 
seems to me a gentleman of some choice qualities, though 
perhaps a trifle bloody-minded. It would please me none 
the worse, if (with all his merits) he were soused in the j 
North Sea; for the man, Mr. David, is a sore embar- 
rassment. But you are doubtless quite right to adhere 
to him; indubitably, he adhered to you. It comes 1 — 1 
we may say — he was your true companion ; nor less pari- ' 
bus curls vestigia figit , 2 for I daresay you would both 
take an orra 3 thought upon the gallows. Well, well, these 
days are fortunately by ; and I think (speaking humanly) 
that you are near the end of your troubles.” 

As he thus moralized on my adventures, he looked 
upon me with so much humor and benignity that I could 
scarce contain my satisfaction. I had been so long 
wandering with lawless people, and making my bed upon 
the hills and under the bare sky, that to sit once more 
in a clean, covered house, and to talk amicably with a 
gentleman in broadcloth, seemed mighty elevations. 
Even as I thought so, my eye fell on my unseemly tat- 
ters, and I was once more plunged in confusion. But 
the lawyer saw and understood me. He rose, called over 
the stair to lay another plate, for Mr. Balfour would 
stay to dinner, and led me into g, bedroom in the upper 
part of the house. Here he set before me water and 
soap and a comb, and laid out some clothes that belonged 
to his son ; and here, with another apposite tag, 4 he left 
me to my toilet. 

1. It comes. Literally, He goes as a companion ; i. e., lie is your 
traveling companion. 

2. Paribus curis vestigia figit. He moves along (literally, he 
plants his footsteps, weighed down with equal cares). This and the 
foregoing quotation are from Vergil’s Aeneid, Book VI. 

3. Orra. Occasional. 4. Apposite tag. Appropriate quotation. 


CHAPTER XXVIII 


I GO IN QUEST OF MY INHERITANCE 

Here I made what change I could in my appearance; 
arid blithe was I to look in the glass and find the beggar- 
man a thing of the past, and David Balfour come to 
life again. And yet I was ashamed of the change, too, 
and above all, of the borrowed clothes. When I had 
done, Mr. Rankeillor caught me on the stair, made me 
his compliments, and had me again into the cabinet. 

“Sit ye down, Mr. Dafidj’^sttid he, “and now that you 
are looking a little more like yourself,, let me see if I 
can find you any news. You will be w r ondering, no 
doubt, about your father and your uncle? To be sure, 

! it is a singular tale; and the explanation is one that I 
blush to have to offer you. For,” says he, really with 
embarrassment, “the matter hinges on a love affair.” 

“Truly,” said I, “I cannot very well join that notion 
with my uncle.” 

“But your uncle, Mr. David, was not always old,” 
replied the lawyer, “and what may perhaps surprise you 
more, not always ugly. He had a fine, gallant air; 
people stood in their doors to look after him, as he went 
by upon a mettle horse. I have seen it with these eyes, 
and I ingenuously confess, not altogether without envy; 
for I was a plain lad myself and a plain man’s son; 
and in those days, it was a case of Odi te, qui bellus 
es , Sabelle . 1 

“It sounds like a dream,” said I. 

“Ay, ay,” said the lawyer, “that is how it is with 
youth and age. Nor was that all, but he had a spirit 
1. Odi te, etc. I hate you for your beauty, Sabellus. 

279 


280 


KIDNAPPED 


of his own that seemed to promise great things in the 
• future. In 1715, what must he do but run away to 

join the rebels! It was your father that pursued him, 

found him in a ditch, and brought him back multum 
gementem; 1 to the mirth of the whole country. How- 
ever, majora canamus 2 — the two lads fell in love, and 
that with the same lady. Mr. Ebenezer, who was the 
admired and the beloved, and the' spoiled one, made, no 
doubt, mighty certain of the victory ; and when he 
found he had deceived himself, screamed like a peacock. 
The whole country heard of it ; now he lay sick at home, 
with his silly family standing round the bed in tears; 

now he rode from public-house to public-house and 

shouted his sorrows- into' the lug 3 of Tom, Dick, and 
Harry. Your father, Mr. David, w r as a kind gentleman; 
but he w T as weak, dolefully weak; took all this folly 
with a long countenance; and one day — by your leave! 
— resigned the lady. She was no such fool, however ; 
it’s from her you must inherit your exceJlent good sense ; 
and she refused to be bandied from one to another. 
Both got upon their knees to her; and the upshot of 
the matter for that while, was that she showed both of 
them the door. That was in August; dear me! the 
same year I came from college. The scene must have 
been highly farcical.” 

I thought myself it was a silly business, but I could 
not forget my father had a hand in it. “Surely, sir, it 
had some note of tragedy,” said I. 

“Why, no, sir, not at all,” returned the lawyer. “For 
tragedy implies some ponderable matter in dispute, some 
dignus vindice nodus; 4 and this piece of work was all 

1. Mullum gementem. Greatly lamenting. 

2. Majora canamus. Let us sing of greater themes. 

3. Lug. Ear. 

4. Dignus vindice nodus. More fully, “Nee deus intersit, nisi 
dignus vindice nodus incideret.” Nor let a god interfere, unless a diffi- 
culty occur woithy of such a helper. — Horace. 


I GO IN QUEST OF MY INHERITANCE 281 

about the petulance of a young ass that had been spoiled, 
and wanted nothing so much as to be tied up and soundly 
belted. However, that was not your father’s view; and 
the end of it was, that from concession to concession on 
your father’s part, and from one height to another of 
squalling, sentimental selfishness upon your uncle’s, they 
came at last to drive a sort of bargain, from whose ill 
results you have recently been smarting. The one man 
took the lady, the other the estate. Now, Mr. David, 
they talk a great, deal of charity and generosity ; but 
in this disputable state of life, I often think the hap- 
piest consequences seem to flow when a gentleman 
consults his lawyer and takes all the law allows him. 
Anyhow, this piece of Quixotry, upon your father’s part, 
as it was unjust in itself, has brought forth a monstrous 
family of injustices. Your father and mother lived and 
died poor folk; you were poorly reared; and in the 
meanwhile, what a time it has been for the poor tenants 
on the estate of Shaws ! And I might add ( if it was 
a matter I cared much about) what a time for Mr. 
Ebenezer !” 

“And yet that is certainly the strangest part of all,” 
said I, “that a man’s nature should thus change.” 

“True,” said Mr. Rankeillor. “And yet I imagine it 
was natural enough. He could not think that he had 
played a handsome part. Those who knew the story 
gave him the cold shoulder; those who knew it not, 
seeing one brother disappear, and the other succeed in 
the estate, raised a cry of murder ; so that upon all sides, 
he found himself evited . 1 Money was all he got by his 
bargain; well, he came to think the more of money. 
He was selfish when he was young, he is selfish now that 
he is old; and the latter end of all these pretty manners 
and fine feelings you have seen for yourself.” 

1. Evited. Avoided. 


282 


KIDNAPPED 


“Well, sir,” said I, “and in all this, what is my 
position ?” 

“The estate is yours beyond a doubt,” replied the 
lawyer. “It matters nothing what your father signed, 
you are the heir of entail . 1 But your uncle is a man to 
fight the indefensible ; and it would be likely your 
identity that he would call in question. A lawsuit is 
always expensive, and a family lawsuit always scanda- 
lous ; besides which, if any of your doings with your 
friend Mr. Thomson were to come out, we might find 
that we had burned our fingers. The kidnapping, to 
be sure, would be a court card upon our side, if we could 
only prove it. But it may be difficult to prove; and 
my advice (upon the whple)* is to make a very easy 
bargain with your uncle, perhaps even leaving him at 
Shaws, where he has tdken root for a quarter of a cen- 
tury, and contenting yourself in the meanwhile w T ith a 
fair provision.” 

I told him I was very willing to be easy, and that to 
carry family concerns before the public was a step from 
which I was naturally much averse. In the meantime 
(thinking to myself) I began to see the outlines of that 
scheme on which we afterwards acted. 

“The great affair,” I asked, “is to bring home to him 
the kidnapping?” 

“Surely,” said Mr. Rankeillor, “and if possible; out 
of court. For mark you here, Mr. David, we could no 
doubt find some men of the Covenant who would swear 
to your reclusion ; 2 but once they were in the box, we 
could no longer check their testimony, and some word of 
your friend Mr. Thomson must certainly crop out. 
Which (from what you have let fall) I cannot think to 
be desirable.” 

1. Heir of entail. Entail is the act or practice of limiting the 
inheritance of estates to a particular class of heirs ; e. g., eldest sons. 

2. Reclusion. Imprisonment. 


I GO IN QUEST OF MY INHERITANCE 283 

“Well, sir,” said I, “here is my way of it.” And I 
opened my plot to him. 

“But this would seem to involve my meeting the man 
Thomson?” says he, when I had done. 

“I think so, indeed, sir,” said I. 

“Dear doctor!” cries he, rubbing his brow. “Dear 
doctor! No, Mr. David, I am afraid your scheme is 
inadmissible. I say nothing against your friend Mr. 
j Thomson; I know nothing against him, and if I did — 
mark this, Mr. David! — it would be my duty to lay 
hands on him. Now I put it to you: is it wise to meet? 
He may have matters to his charge. He may not have 
: told you all. His n^me may not be even Thomson !” 

| cries the lawyer, twinkling; “for some of these fellows 
| will pick up names by the roadside as another would 
: gather haw r s.” 

“You must be the judge, sir,” said I. 

But it was clear my plan had taken hold upon his 
I fancy, for he kept musing to himself till we were called' 
to dinner and the company of Mrs. Kankeillor; and 
that lady had scarce left us again to ourselves and a 
bottle of wine, ere he was back harping on my proposal. 
When and where was I to meet my friend Mr. Thomson; 
w^as I sure of Mr. T.’s discretion ; supposing we could 
i catch the old fox tripping, would I consent to such and 
! such a term of an agreement — -these and the like ques- 
tions he kept asking at long intervals, while he thought- 
fully rolled his wine upon his tongue. When I had 
answered all of them, seemingly to his contentment, he 
fell into a still deeper muse, even the claret being now 
forgotten. Then he got a sheet of paper and a pencil 
and set to work writing and weighing every word; and 
at last touched a bell and had his clerk into the 
chamber. 

“Torrance,” said he, “I must have this written out 
fair against to-night; and when it is done, you will be 


2S4 


KIDNAPPED 


so kind*as put on your hat and be ready to come along 
with this gentleman and me, for you will probably bfc 
wanted as a witness.” 

“What, sir,” cried I, as soon as the clerk was gone, 
“are you to venture it?” - A 

“Why, so it would appear,” says he, filling his glass. 
“But let us speak no more of business.,. The very sight 
of Torrance brings in my head a little, droll matter of 
some years ago, when I had made a tryst with the poor 
oaf at the cross of Edinburgh. Each had gone his 
proper errand; and when it came four o’clock, Torrance 
had been taking a glass and did not know his master, 
and I, who had forgot my spectacles, was so blind 
without them, that I givtvyou my word I did not know 
my own clerk.” And thereupon he laughed heartily. 

I said it was an odd chance, and smiled out of polite- 
ness; but what held me all the afternoon in wonder, he 
kept returning and dwelling on this story, and telling 
it again with fresh details and laughter ; so that I 
began at last to be quite out of countenance and feel 
ashamed for my friend’s folly. 

Toward the time I had appointed with Alan, we set 
out from the house, Mr. Rankeillor and I arm in arm, 
and Torrance following behind w 7 ith the deed in his 
pocket and a covered basket in his hand. All through 
the town, the lawyer w r as bowing right and left, and 
continually being buttonholed by gentlemen on matters 
of burgh or private business ; and I could see he was 
one greatly looked up to in the country. At last w T e 
w r ere clear of the houses, and began to go along the 
side of the haven and toward the Hawes Inn and the 
ferry pier, the scene of my misfortune. I could not 
look upon the place without emotion, recalling how many 
that had been there w T ith me that day were now 7 no more : 
llansome taken, I could hope, from the evil to come; 
Shuan passed where I dare not follow him; and the 


I GO IN QUEST OF MY INHERITANCE 285 

poor souls that had gone down with the brig in her last 
plunge. All these, and the brig herself, I had outlived ; 
and come through these hardships and fearful perils 
without a scathe. My only thought should have been 
of gratitude; and yet I could not behold the place 
without sorrow for others and a chill of recollected fear. 

I was so thinking when, upon a sudden, Mr. Rankeillor 
cried out, clapped his hand to his pockets, and began to 
laugh. 

“Why,” he cries, “if this be not a farcical adventure ! 
After all that I said, I have forgot my glasses !” 

At that, of course, I understood the purpose of his 
anecdote, and knew that if he had left his spectacles 
at home it had been done; on purpose, so that he might 
have the benefit of Alan’s help without the awkwardness 
of recognizing him. And indeed it was well thought 
upon; for now (suppose things to go the very worst) 
how could Rankeillor sw T ear to my friend’s identity, or 
hov T be made to bear damaging evidence against myself? 
For all that, he had been a long while of finding out his 
w r ant, and had spoken to and recognized a good few 7 
persons as we came through the tow n ; and I had little 
doubt myself that he saw reasonably w T ell. 

As soon as w r e were past the Hawes (where I recog- 
nized the landlord smoking his pipe in the door, and 
w r as amazed to see him look no older) Mr. Rankeillor 
changed the order of march, walking behind with Tor- 
rance and sending me forward in the manner of a scout. 
I w r ent up the hill, whistling from time to time my 
Gaelic air; and at length I had the pleasure to hear it 
answered and to see Alan rise from behind a bush. He 
was somewhat dashed in spirits, having passed a long 
day alone skulking in the country, and’ made but a poor 
meal in an alehouse near Dundas. But at the mere 
sight of my clothes, he began to brighten up ; and as 
soon as I had told him in what a forward state our 


286 


KIDNAPPED 


matters were, and the part I looked to him to play in j 
what remained, he sprang into a new T man. 

“And that is a very good notion of yours,” says he ; 
“and I dare to say that you could lay your hands upon 
no better man to put it through than Alan Breck. It 
is not a thing (mark ye) that any one could do, but 
takes a gentleman of penetration. But it sticks in my 
head your lawyer-man will be somewhat wearying to see 
me,” says Alan. 

Accordingly, I cried and waved on Mr. Rankeillor, 
who came up alone and was presented to my friend, Mr. 
Thomson. 

“Mr. Thomson, I am pleased to meet you,” said he. 
“But I have forgotten irr^ glasses; and our friend, Mr. 
David here” (clapping me on the shoulder) “w T ill tell 
you that I am little better than blind, and that you 
must not be surprised if I pass you by tomorrow.” 

This he said, thinking that Alan would be pleased ; but 
the Highlandman’s vanity was ready to startle at a less 
matter than that. 

“Why, sir,” says he, stiffly, “I would say it mattered 
the less as we are met here for a particular end, to see 
justice done to Mr. Balfour; and by what I can see, not 
very likely to have much else in common. But I accept 
your apology, which was a very proper one to make.” 

“And that is more than I could look for, Mr. 
Thomson,” said Rankeillor, heartily. “And now as you 
and I are the chief actors in this enterprise, I think we- 
should come into a nice agreement ; to which end, I 
propose that you should lend me your arm, for (what 
with the dusk and the want of my glasses) I am not 
very clear as to the path ; and as for you, Mr. David, 
you will find Torrance, a pleasant kind of body to speak 
with. Only let me remind you, it’s quite needless he 
should hear more of your adventures or those of — ahem 
— Mr. Thomson.” 


1 GO IN QUEST OF MY INHERITANCE 


287 


Accordingly, these two went on ahead in very close 
talk, and Torrance and I brought up the rear. 

Night was quite come when we came in view of the 
house of Shaws. Ten had been gone some time; it was 
dark and mild, with a pleasant, rustling wind in the 
south-west that covered the sound of our approach ; and 
as we drew near we saw no glimmer of light in any 
portion of the building. It seemed my uncle was already 
in bed, which was indeed the best thing for our arrange- 
ments. We made our last whispered consultations some 
fifty yards away; and then the lawyer and Torrance 
and I crept quietly up and crouched* down beside the 
corner of the house; and as soon as we were in our 
places, Alan strode to the* dooti 3 ' without concealment and 
began to knock. 


/ 


CHAPTER XXIX 


I COME INTO MY KINGDOM 

For some time Alan volleyed upon the door, and his 
knocking only roused the echoes of the house and 
neighborhood. At last, however, I could hear the noise ' 
of a window gently fhrust up, and knew that my uncle ! 
had come to his observatory. By what light there was, ] 
he would see Alan standing, like a dark shadow, on the 
steps; the three witnesses* werte hidden quite out of his 
view; so that, in what he saw, there was nothing to 
alarm an honest man in his own house. For all that, 
he studied his visitor a while in silence, and when he | 
spoke his voice had a quaver of misgiving. 

“What’s this?” says he. “This is nae kind of time i 
of night for decent folk; and I hae nae trokings 1 
wi’ night-hawks. What brings ye here? I have a 
blunderbush.” 

“Is that yoursel’, Mr. Balfour?” returned Alan, step- 
ping back and looking up into the darkness. “Have 
a care of that blunderbuss ; they’re nasty things to 
burst.” 

“What brings ye here? and whae are ye?” says my 
uncle, angrily. 

“I have no manner of inclination to rowt 2 out my 
name to the countryside,” said Alan; “but what brings 
me here is another story, being more of your affairs than 
mine; and if ye’re sure it’s what ye would like, I’ll set 
it to a tune and sing it to you.” 

“And what is’t?” asked my uncle. 

1. Nae trokings. No dealings. 2. Rowt. Shout. 

288 


I COME INTO MY KINGDOM 


289 


“David,” says Alan. 

“What was that?” cried my uncle in a mighty 
changed voice. 

“Shall I give ye the rest of the name then?” said 
Alan. 

There was a pause ; and then, “I’m thinking I’ll 
better let ye in,” says my uncle, doubtfully. 

“I daresay that,” said Alan; “but the point is, Would 
I go? Now I will tell you what I am thinking. I am 
thinking that it is here upon this doorstep that we 
must confer upon this business; and it shall be here or 
nowhere at all whatever; for I would have you to under- 
stand that I am as stiff-necked as yoursel’, and a 
gentleman of better family.” f 

This change of note disconcerted Ebenezer; he was a 
little while digesting it; and then says he, “Weel, weel, 
what must be must,” and shut the window. But it took 
him a long time to get down-stairs, and a still longer 
to undo the fastenings, repenting (I daresay) and taken 
with fresh claps of fear at every second step and every 
bolt and bar. At last, however, we heard the creak of 
the hinges, and it seems my uncle slipped gingerly out 
and '(seeing that Alan had stepped back a pace or two) 
sate him down on the top doorstep with the blunderbuss 
ready in his hands. 

“And now,” says he, “mind I have my blunderbush, 
and if ye take a step nearer ye’re as good as deid.” 

“And a very civil speech,” says Alan, “to be sure.” 

“Na,” says my uncle, “but this is ho a very chancy 1 
kind of a proceeding, and I’m bound to be prepared. 
And now that we understand each other, ye’ll can name 
your business.” 

“Why,” says Alan, “you that are a man of so much 
understanding will doubtless have perceived that I am 

1. No a very chancy. Not very safe, with the strong affirmative 
sense of “dangerous.” 


290 


KIDNAPPED 


a Hieland gentleman. My name has nae business in my 
story ; but the county of my friends is no very far from 
the Isle of Mull, of wh^ch ye will have heard. It seems | 
there was a ship lost in those parts; and the next day 
a gentleman of my fanjil^kwas seeking wreck-wood for 
his fire along the sands, when he came upon a lad that j 
was half drowned. Well, he brought him to; and he i 
and some other gentlemen took and clapped him in an 
auld, ruined castle, where from that day to this he has 
been a great expense to my friends. My friends are a 
wee wild-like, and not so particular about the law as 
some that I could name ; and finding that the lad owned 
some decent folk, and was your born nephew, Mr. 
Balfour, they asked me give ye a bit call and to , 
confer upon the matter. And I may tell ye at the off-go, 
unless we can agree upon some terms, ye are little likely 
to set eyes upon him. For my friends,” added Alan, 
simply, “are no very well off.” 

My uncle cleared his throat. “I’m no very caring,” 
says he. “He wasnae a good lad at the best of it, and 
I’ve nae call to interfere.” 

“Ay, ay,” said Alan, “I see what ye would be at: pre- 
tending ye don’t care, to make the ransom smaller.” 

“Na,” said my uncle, “it’s the mere truth. I take nae 
manner of interest in the lad, and I’ll pay nae ransom, 
and ye can make a kirk and a mill of him 1 for what I 
care.” 

“Hoot, sir,” says Alan. “Blood’s thicker than water, 
in the deil’s name! Ye cannae desert your brother’s son 
for the fair shame of it and if ye did, and it came to be 
kennt, ye wouldnae be very popular in your countryside, 
or I’m the more deceived.” 

“I’m no just very popular the way it is,” returned 
Bbenezer ; “and I dinnae see how it would come to 

1. Make a kirk and a mill of him. Dispose of him the best way 
you know how; “make the best of a bad job with him.” 


1 COME INTO MY KINGDOM 


291 


be kennt. No by me, onyway; nor yet by you or 
your friends. So that’s idle talk, my buckie,” says he. 

“Then it’ll have to be David that tells it,” said Alan. 

“How’s that?” says my uncle, sharply. 

“Ou, just this way,” says^Alan. “My friends would 
doubtless keep your nephew as long as there was any 
likelihood of siller to be made of it, but if there was 
nane, I am clearly of opinion they would let him gang 
where he pleased, and be damned to him !” 

“Ay, but I’m no very caring about that either,” 
said my uncle. “I wouldnae be muckle made up with 
that.” 1 

“I was thinking that,” said Alan. 

“And what for why?” asked Ebenezer. 

“Why, Mr. Balfour,” replied Alan, “by all that I 
could hear, there were two ways of it ; either ye liked 
David and would pay to get him back; or else ye had 
very good reasons for not wanting him, and would 
pay for us to keep him. It seems it’s not the first; 
well then-, it’s the second; and blithe am I to ken it, 
for it should be a pretty penny in my pocket and the 
pockets of my friends.” 

“I dinnae follow ye there,” said my uncle. 

“No?” said Alan. “Well, see here: you dinnae 
want the lad back; well, what do ye want done with 
him, and how much will ye pay?” 

My uncle made no answer, but shifted uneasily on 
his seat. 

“Come, sir,” cried Alan. “I would have ye to ken 
that I am a gentleman; I bear a king’s name; I am 
nae rider to kick my shanks at your hall door. Either 
give me an answer in civility, and that out of hand; 
or by the top of Glencoe, I will ram three feet of iron 
through your vitals.” 

1. 7 wouldnae "be muckle made up with that. I would not be 

much benefited by that. 


292 


KIDNAPPED 


“Eh, man,” cried my uncle, scrambling to his feet, 
“give me a meenit ! What’s like wrong with ye? I’m 
just a plain man, and nae dancing-master; and I’m 
trying to be as ceevil as it’s morally possible. As for 
that wild talk, it’s fair disrepitable. Vitals, says you! 
And where would I be with my blunderbush ?” he 
snarled. 

“Powder and your auld hands are but as the snail 
to the swallow against the bright steel in the hands of 
Alan,” said the other. “Before your j ottering 1 finger 
could find the trigger, the hilt would dirl 2 on your 
breastbane.” 

“Eh, man, whae’s denying it?” said my uncle. “Pit 
it as ye please, hae’t your am way; I’ll do naething 
to cross ye. . Just tell me what like ye’ll be wanting, 
and ye’ll see that we’ll can agree fine.” 

“Troth, sir,” said Alan, “I ask for nothing but plain 
dealing. In two words: do ye want the lad killed or 
kept ?” 

“O, sirs !” cried Ebenezer. “O, sirs, me ! that’s no 
kind of language!” 

“Killed or kept?” repeated Alan. 

“O keepit, keepit!” wailed my uncle. “We’ll have 
nae bloodshed, if ye please.” 

“Well,” says Alan, “as ye please; that’ll be the 
dearer.” 

“The dearer?” cries Ebenezer. “Would ye fyle 3 your 
hands wi’ crime?” 

“Hoot !” said Alan, “they’re baith crime, whatever ! 
And the killing’s easier, and quicker, and surer. Keep- 
ing the lad’ll be a fashious 4 job, a fashious, kittle 
business.” 

“I 11 have him keepit, though,” returned my uncle. 

I never had naething to do with onything morally 

1. Jntterinrj. Trembling. 2. Dirl. Vibrate. 

3. Fyle. Defile. 4. Fashirvs Troublesome. 


1 COME INTO MY KINGDOM 


293 


wrong ; and I’m no gaun to begin to pleasure a wild 
Hielandman.” 

“Ye’re unco’ scrupulous,” sneered Alan. 

“I’m a man o’ principle,” said Ebenezer, simply; 
“and if I have to pay for it, I’ll have to pay for it. 
And besides,” says he, “ye forget the lad’s my brother’s 
son.” 

“Well, well,” said Alan, “and how about the price. 
It’s no very easy for me to set a name upon it ; I would 
first have to ken some small matters. I would have td 
I ken, for instance, what ye gave Hoseason at the first 
I off-go ?” 

“Hoseason?” cries my uncle, struck aback. “What 
for?” 

“For kidnapping David, says Alan. 

“It’s a lee, it’s a black lee!” cried my uncle. “He 
was never kidnapped. He leed in his throat that tauld 
ye that. Kidnapped ? He never was !” 

“That’s no fault of mine nor yet of yours,” said 
Alan; “nor yet of Hoseason’s, if he’s a man that can 
be trusted.” 

“What do ye mean?” cried Ebenezer; “did Hoseason 
tell ye?” 

“Why, ye donnered auld runt , 1 how else would I 
ken?” cried Alan. “Hoseason and me are partners; we 
gang shares; so ye can see for yoursel’ what good ve 
can do leeing. And I must plainly say ye drove a fool’s 
bargain when ye let a man like the sailor-man so far 
forward in your private matters. But that’s past 
praying for; and ye must lie on your bed the way ye 
made it. And the point in hand is just this: what 
did ye pay him?” 

“Has he tauld ye himsel’?” asked my uncle. 

“That’s my concern,” said Alan. 

“Weel,” said my uncle, “I dinnae care what he said, 

1. Donnered auld runt. Dunderheaded old boor. 


294 


KIDNAPPED 


he leed, and the solemn God’s truth is this, that I gave 
him twenty pound. But I’ll be perfec’ly honest with 
yes forby that, he was to have the selling of the lad 
in Caroliny, whilk would be as muckle mair, but no from 
my pocket, ye see.” 

“Thank you, Mr. Thompson. That will do excel- 
lently well,” said the lawyer, stepping forward: and 
then mighty civilly, “Good evening, Mr. Balfour,” 
said he. 

And, “Good evening, Uncle Ebenezer,” said I. 

And, “It’s a braw nicht, Mr. Balfour,” added Tor- 
rance. 

Never a word said my uncle, neither black nor white ; 
but just sat where he was oi^the Jop doorstep and stared 
upon us like a man turned tb stone. Alan filched away 
his blunderbuss ; and the lawyer, taking him by the 
arm, plucked him up from the doorstep, led him into 
the kitchen, whither we all followed, and set him down 
in a chair beside the hearth, where the fire was out and 
only a rushlight burning. 

There we all looked upon him for a while, exulting 
greatly in our success, but yet with a sort of pity for 
the man’s shame. 

“Come, come, Mr. Ebenezer,” said the lawyer, “you 
must not be downhearted, for I promise you we shall 
ma|e easy terms. In the meanwhile give us the cellar 
key, and Torrance shall draw us a bottle of your father’s 
wine in honor of the event.” Then, turning to me and 
taking me by the hand, “Mr. David,” says he, “I wish 
you all joy in your good fortune, which I believe to 
be deserved.” And then to Alan, with a spice of drollery, 
“Mr. Thomson, I pay you my compliment ; it was 
most artfully conducted; but in one point you some- 
what outran my comprehension. Do I understand your 
name to be James? or Charles? or is it George, 
perhaps ?” 


I COME INTO MY KINGDOM 295 

And why should it be any of the thbee, sir?” quoth 
Alan, drawing himself up, like one who smelt an 
offence. 

Only, sir, that you mentioned a king’s name,” re- 
plied Rankeillor ; “and as there has never been a 
King Thomson, or his fame at least has never come my 
wa J? I judged you must refer to that you had in 
baptism.” 

This was just the stab that Alan would feel keenest, 
and I am free to confess he took it very ill. Not a 
word Aiiould he answer, but stepped off to the far end 
of the kitchen, and sat down and sulked; and it was 
not till I stepped after him, and gave him my hand, 
and thanked him by title as the chief spring of my 
success, that he began to smile a bit, and was at last 
prevailed upon to join our party. 

By that time we had the fire lighted, and a bottle of 
wine uncorked; a good supper came out of the basket, 
to which Torrance and I and Alan set ourselves down; 
while the lawyer and my uncle passed into the next 
chamber to consult. They stayed there closeted about 
an hour ; at the end of which period they had come 
to a good understanding, and my uncle and I set our 
hands to the agreement in a formal manner. By the 
terms of this, my uncle was confirmed for life in the 
possession of the house and lands; and bound himself 
to satisfy Rankeillor as to his intromissions , 1 and to 
pay me two clear thirds of the yearly income. 

So the beggar in the ballad had come home; and 
when I lay down that night on the kitchen chests, I 
was a man of means and had a name in the country. 
Alan and Torrance and Rankeillor slept and snored on 
their hard beds; but for me, who had lain out under 
heaven and upon dirt and stones, so many days and 

1. Intromissions. Acts of meddling with another person’s ‘‘prop- 
erty. 


KIDNAPPED 


296 

nights, and often with an empty belly, and in fear of 
death, this good change in my case unmanned me more 
than any of the former evil ones; and I lay till dawn, 
looking at the fire on the roof and planning the future. 


CHAPTER XXX 


GOOD-BYE 

So far as I was concerned myself, I had come to port; 
but I had still Alan, to whom I was so much beholden, 
on my hands ; and I felt besides a heavy charge in the 
matter of the murder and James of the Glens. On both 
these heads I unbosomed to Rankeillor the next morn- 
ing, walking to and fro about six of the clock before 
the house of Shaws, and *vith nothing in view but 
the fields and woods that had been my ancestors’ and 
were now mine. Even as I spoke on these grave sub- 
jects, my eye would take a glad bit of a run over the 
prospect, and my heart jump with pride. 

About my clear duty to my friend, the lawyer had 
no doubt; I must help him out of the country at what- 
ever risk; but in the case of James, he was of a 
different mind. 

“Mr. Thomson,” says he, “is one thing, Mr. Thom- 
son’s kinsman quite another. I know little of the facts, 
but I gather that a great noble (whom we will call, if 
you like, the D. of A. 1 ) has some concern and is even 
supposed to feel animosity in the matter. The D. of A 
is doubtless an excellent nobleman ; but, Mr. David, 
timeo qui nocuere deos . 2 If you interfere to balk his 
vengeance, you should remember there is one way to 

1. D. of A. Archibald Campbell, the Duke of Argyll (1682-1761). 
He played an important part in the public affairs of his country and 
after 1721 was trusted with such powers that he came to be called 
the “King of Scotland.” 

2. Timeo qui nocuere deos. I fear those who have done injury 
to the gods. 


297 


298 


KIDNAPPED 


shut your testimony out; and that is to put you in 
the dock. There, you wcClild be in the same pickle as 
Mr. Thomson’s kinsman. You will object that you are 
innocent ; well, but so is he. And to be tried for your 
life before a Highland jury, on a Highland quarrel, 
and with a Highland judge upon the bench, would be 
a brief transition to the gallows.” 

Now I had made all these reasonings before and found 
no very good reply to them ; so I put on all the sim- 
plicity I could. “In that case, sir,” said I, “I would 
just have to be hanged — would I not?” 

“My dear boy,” cries he, “go in God’s name, and do 
what you think is right. It is a poor thought that at 
my time of life I should be advising you to choose the 
safe and shameful; and I take it back with an apology. 
Go and do your duty; and be hanged, if you must, 
like a gentleman. There are worse things in the world 
than to be hanged.” 

“Not many, sir,” said I, smiling. 

“Why, yes, sir,” he cried, “very many. And it would 
be ten times better for your uncle (to go no further 
afield) if he were dangling decently upon a gibbet.” 

Thereupon he turned into the house (still in a great 
fervor of mind, so that I saw I had pleased him 
heartily) and there he wrote me two letters, making his 
comments on them as he wrote. 

“This,” says he, “is to my bankers, the British Linen 
Company, placing a credit to your name. Consult Mr. 
Thomson ; he will know of ways ; and you, with this 
credit, can supply the means. I trust you will be a 
good husband of your money; but in the affair of a 
friend like Mr. Thomson, I would be even prodigal. 
Then, for his kinsmqn, there is no better way than that 
you should seek the Advocate, tell him your tale, and 
offer testimony ; whether he may take it or not, is quite 
another matter, and will turn on the D. of A. Now 


GOOD-BYE 


299 


that you may reach the Lord Advocate 1 well recom- 
mended, I give you here a letter to a namesake of your 
own, the learned Mr. Balfour of Pilrig, a man whom 
I esteem. It w r ill look better that you should be pre- 
sented by one of your own name ; and the laird of 
Pilrig is much looked up to in the Faculty 2 and stands 
well with Lord Advocate Grant. I would not trouble 
him, if I were you, with any particulars; and (do you 
know?) I think it would be needless to refer to Mr. 
Thomson. Form yourself upon the laird, he is a good 
model ; w r hen you deal with the Advocate, be discreet ; 
and in all these matters, may the Lord guide you, Mr. 
David !” 

Thereupon he took ‘his farewell, and set out with 
Torrance for the Ferry, while Alan and I turned out 
faces for the city of Edinburgh. As we went by the 
footpath and beside the gateposts and the unfinished 
lodge, we kept looking back at the house of my fathers. 
It stood there, bare and great and smokeless, like a 
place not lived in ; only in one of the top windows, 
there was the peak of a nightcap bobbing up and down 
and back and forward, like the head of a rabbit from 
a burrow. I had little welcome when I came, and less 
kindness while I stayed; but at least I was watched as 
I went away. 

In the meanwhile Alan and I went slowly forward 
upon our way, having little heart either to walk or 
speak. The same thought was uppermost in both, that 
we were near the time of our parting; and remem- 
brance of all the bygone days sate upon us sorely. We 
talked indeed of what should be done; and it was 
resolved that Alan should keep to the country, biding 
now here, now there, but coming once in a day to a par- 
ticular place where I might be able to communicate with 

1. The Lord Advocate. The chief public prosecutor in Scotland. 

2. The Faculty. The members of the legal profession. 


300 


KIDNAPPED 


him, either in my own person or by messenger. In the 
meanwhile, I was to seek out a lawyer, who was an 
Appin Stewart, and a man therefore to be w r holly 
trusted; and it should be his part to find a ship and 
to arrange for Alan’s safe embarkation. No sooner 
was this business done, than the words seemed to leave 
us; and though I would seek to jest with Alan under 
the name of Mr. Thomson, and he with me on my new 
clothes and my estate, you could feel very well that we 
were nearer tears than laughter. 

We came the by-way over the hill of Corstorphine ; 
and when we got near to the place called Rest-and-be- 
Thankful, and looked down on the Corstorphine bogs 
and over to the city and th^ castle on the hill, we both 
stopped, for we both knew, without a word said, that 
we had come to where our w r ays parted. Here he 
repeated to me once again what had been agreed upon 
between us: the address of the lawyer, the daily hour 
at w r hich Alan might be found, and the signals that 
were to be made by any that came seeking him. Then 
I gave what money I had (a guinea or two of Ran- 
keillor’s), so that he should not starve in the mean- 
while; and then we stood a space, and looked over 
Edinburgh in silence. 

“Well, good-bye,” said Alan, and held out his left 
hand. 

“Good-bye,” said I, and gave the hand a little grasp, 
and went off down the hill. 

Neither one of us looked the other in the face, nor 
so long as he was in my view did I take one back glance 
at the friend I was leaving. But as I went on my way 
to the city, I felt so lost and lonesome, that I could 
have found it in my heart to sit down by the dyke,, and 
cry and weep like a baby. 

It was coming near noon, when I passed in by the 
West Kirk and the Grassmarket into the streets of the 


GOOD-BYE 


301 


capital. The huge height of the buildings, running 
up to ten and fifteen stories, the narrow arched entries 
that continually vomited passengers, the wares of the 
merchants in their windows, the hubbub and endless stir, 
the foul smells and the fine clothes, and a hundred other 
particulars too small to mention, struck me into a kind 
of stupor of surprise, so that I let the crowd carry me 
to and fro ; and yet all the time what I was thinking 
of was Alan at Rest-and-be-Thankful ; and all the time 
(although you would think I would not choose but be 
delighted with these braws and novelties) there was a 
cold gnawing in my inside like a remorse for something 
wrong. 

The hand of Providence brought me in my drifting 
to the very doors of the British Linen Company’s bank. 

[Just there, with his hand upon his fortune, the 
present editor inclines for the time to say farewell to 
David. How Alan escaped, and what was done about 
the murder, with a variety of other delectable partic- 
ulars, may be some day set forth. That is a thing, 
however, that hinges on the public fancy. The editor 
has a great kindness for both Alan and David, and 
would gladly spend much of his life in their society; 
but in this he may find 'himself tb stand alone. In the 
fear of which, and lest any one should complain of 
scurvy usage, he hastens to protest that all went well 
with both, in the limited and human sense of the word 
“well;” that whatever befell them, it was not dishonor, 
and whatever failed them, they were not found wanting 
to themselves.] 


APPENDIX 


4 




V 












APPENDIX 


(Adapted, and enlarged, from the Manual for the Study of Eng- 
lish Classics, by George L. Marsh) 

HELPS TO STUDY 
Life of Stevenson 

When and where was Stevenson born (p. 9) ? In what sort of 
family? What personal handicap did he struggle against? 

What influences of Stevensonjs youth helped toward his later 
career as a romancer (pp. 10 fp) ? 

How did he declare he learned to write (pp. 11, 12) ? 

What university did he attend? With what aims and what suc- 
cess? What benefits of importance did he gain from his formal 
education ? 

Name and describe briefly some of his first literary attempts 
(P- 13). 

Give a brief account of his experiences in the United States 
(pp. 13-16). 

Where did Stevenson finally journey in search of health (pp. 
16-18) ? What important services did he render in his final home, 
and how were his services rewarded? What relations did he main- 
tain with the South Sea islanders (pp. 17 ff.) ? 

When and where did he die (p. 20) ? 

What is it most important to remember about Stevenson’s per- 
sonal character (pp. 20-22) ? Note the eternal boyishness of his 
nature (pp. 21 ff.). Find examples in his work. 

Name and briefly describe some of the most important of his 
works. 

What is Stevenson’s position in the history of nineteenth cen- 
tury literature (pp. 22-24) ? 

Perry Picture 32 is a portrait of Stevenson. 


304 


APPENDIX 


Kidnapped — General Matters 

Wliat suggested this story to Stevenson (p., 24) ? Note .that in 
connection with his father’s occupation he became familiar with 
the western islands. The Stevensons built the lighthouse at 
Skerryvore (pp. 9, 181). 

Study the historical background (pp. 27-31) with particular 
reference to the facts there stated which have reflections in the 
story (e. g., pp. 103 ft., 125 ff., 155, 227 ft., 244, 265). 

Follow the geography of the story with some care, supplementing 
the map in the textbook by one on a larger scale. Note that Alan 
and David pass very near the country of The Lady of the LaTce 
(see the Lake edition). What Highland custom dwelt on in Scott ’s 
poem reappears prominently in Kidnapped (see p. 210) ? 

Trace the chronology of the story. ... How definitely is the time 
indicated? Is precision as to owie ever made too prominent? 

Discuss various questions suggested by Stevenson’s preference 
of Kidnapped among his stories (p. 24), particularly in compari- 
son with Treasure Island (if the students are familiar with that). 
For example, are the events of Kidnapped a little less hackneyed 
and more dignified? Is Kidnapped less of a “sublimated dime 
novel”? Is there more variety in Kidnapped ? A more vivid im- 
pression of reality (as of place, for instance) ? Is the style of 
Kidnapped more strikingly effective? 

What is added by the Scotch dialect? Does it detract anything? 
Is it really difficult? Is the Scottish dialect on any different 
plane, artistically, from local American dialects, such as the negro 
dialect of the South? Answer with reasons. 

What does Stevenson’s Dedication (pp. 37, 38) indicate as to 
his purpose in writing? Do you think he fulfills it? 

How prominently do women appear in Kidnapped ? (Compare 
Treasure Island on this point.) How 7 do you account for the fact? 
Is it a defect? Give reasons for your answers. 

Note the directness of the beginning, followed by the casual in- 
troduction of facts necessary for a full understanding. How long 
is it before the exact truth as to David’s family history is known 
(p. 281) ? Trace the increasing definiteness of the hints (pp. 61, 
81, etc.).'' 

What do you think of the conclusion? Does it seem complete 


APPENDIX 


305 


enough? Note that the final paragraph (printed in brackets on 
p. 301) is omitted in editions of Stevenson’s works which include 
David Balfour. Why? (Of course it is desirable that students read 
the latter story, or learn by some means something of the way in 
which David’s career continues.) 

Details of the Story 

How are we prepared for the character of David’s uncle and the 
events in which he has part (pp. 46 ff.) ? Note in full detail the 
harmony of his home, his appearance, his life, with his character. 

Note the effective ending of Chapter I; then a lapse of time 
(during which evidently nothing important happened) ; then the 
direct beginning of Chapter II (without the trouble of saying 
anything about what has happened meanwhile). On the other 
hand, for perfectly obvious^reasons, Chapter III continues exactly 
where Chapter II leaves off. Stu^y the relations of adjacent chap- 
ters similarly in other parts of the book. 

Why should there be such hints for the future as are found at 
the bottom of page 70? Do you find any other similar devices? 

How are we prepared for the character of the men on board the 
Covenant (pp. 74 ff.) ? Note that this is the dramatic method; 
why is it better than formal characterization by the author? 

How did Captain Hoseason happen to be writing to David’s 
uncle (p. 72) ? When and how w^as the kidnapping plot worked up? 
Why is the story no more definite on this point ? 

Note the harmony of Alan’s character, as displayed throughout 
the book, with his appearance as first described (p. 100). 

Of what incident in Treasure Island does David’s overhearing the 
plot against Alan (p. 105) remind one? (See the Lake edition 
of Treasure Island, pp. 93 ff.) Do you find other resemblances in 
specific situations or incidents. 

Are the events of Chapter X made to appear plausible — possi- 
ble? If you think they are, discuss the means. 

What is the purpose of introducing the details of Chapter XII 
(particularly pp. 129 ff.) ? How are they used later? 

What portion of the book reminds one of Bobinson Crusoe (see 
the allusion on p. 144) ? Note the irony of David’s sufferings on 
the islet, which are made positively painful to the reader, yet turn 
out to be a sort of joke. 


306 


APPENDIX 


How does David indirectly find out more about Alan (e. g., p. 
168-) ? Why are such methods of characterization particularly use- 
ful in a first-person narrative? 

Why should David be so definite as to the description of the 
murderer (p. 177)? What later use is made of his knowledge in 
this matter? 

Is Alan’s timely appearance (p. 178) accounted for? Are both 
David ’s suspicion of Alan, and his abandonment of suspicion, ade- 
quately accounted for? 

What good purposes for the story are served by the episode with 
Cluny (pp. 227 ff.) ? 

Is the quarrel (Chap. XXIV) made to appear natural? And the 
reconciliation? Give precise details in support of your conclusions. 


APPENDIX 


307 


thi!me SUBJECTS 

1. The life of Stevenson (pp. 9-20). 

2. How Stevenson trained himself to write (pp. 11, 12). 

3. Character sketch of Stevenson. 

4. Stevenson in Samoa (pp. 17-20). 

5. The historical background of Kidnapped (pp. 27-31, and 
many places in the story). 

6. The geographic setting of the story. (Perhaps some stu- 
dent has visited some portion of the territory and can write about 
it.) 

7. Why Kidnapped is (or is not) to be preferred to Treasure 
Island. (Or comparison may be made with some other book that 
is a proper subject of comparison.) 

8. The later story of David Jlalfour (to be summarized from 
David Balfour). 

9. Narrative themes on different parts of the story, as follows: 

David and his uncle. 

The last voyage of the Covenant. 

Hunted through the Highlands. 

Or more minute divisions may be made, such as: 

The fight in the round-house. 

0 David on the islands. 

The Appin murder. 

At Cluny’s Cage (pp. 226 If.). 

A Stewart meets a Macgregor (pp. 252 ff.). 

10. The story of Alexander and Ebenezer Balfour (to be filled 
out from pp. 279-81, and hints elsewhere). 

11. A story of the cabin boy, Ransome (how he came to go to 
sea, or some other matter suggested by his character or talk or 
action). 

12. The story Riach did not tell (p. 92). 

13. The Highland character (pp. 27-29 and hints throughout 
the book). 

14. Character sketches of Alan Breck, David Balfour, Ebenezer 
Balfour, Mr. Rankeillor, and other people whem ©avid encountered 
in his wandering. 


308 


APPENDIX 


SELECTIONS FOR CLASS READING 

1. David meets his uncle (pp. 47-51). 

2. A narrow escape (pp. 65-69). 

3. The kidnapping (pp. 79-83). 

4. Ransome’s fate (pp. 93-96). 

5. Enter Alan Breck (pp. 99-103). 

6. The fight in the round-house (pp. 110-15). 

7. Alan ’s story (pp. 125-29). 

8. David gets ashore (pp. 138-41). 

9. On the isle of Earraid (pp. 142-46). 

10. The escape from the island (pp. 148-52). 

11. David’s guides (pp. 156-61). 

12. The death of the Red Fox (pp. 174-77). 

13. Alan’s escape from the sjiip (]5p. 186-89). 

14. On the rocks (pp. 199-205^. 

15. Through the muir (p. 218-25). 

16. Through the rain (pp. 240, 241). 

17. The quarrel (pp. 242-47). 

18. A Highlanders’ contest (pp. 252-55). 

19. Alan wins a way across the Forth (pp. 2fi3-67). 

20. David tells his story to Mr. Rankeillor (pp. 276-78). 

21. Entrapping Uncle Ebenezer (pp. 288-94). 


SUGGESTIONS FOE DRAMATIZATION 


(With acknowledgments to Simons and Orr’s Dramatization, Scott, 
Foresman and Company, 1913) 

It has been the experience of many teachers that 1 * dramatization 
of the literature studied is one of the most successful of all devices 
for vitalizing the work of the English class. ” Nor is dramatiza- 
tion difficult if the task is approached with an understanding of the 
book in hand, and of the sort of scenes that can be presented with 
some effectiveness by young students. 

In dramatizations from a nov^l it will usually be found that 
the author provides plenty of conversation, which can be and should 
be taken over with little, if any, change. A novel of any length, 
however, presents so many interesting, even highly dramatic dia- 
logues that the choice of the best ones for presentation may be 
puzzling. 

It is important that the scene or group of scenes chosen shall have 
a certain clearness and completeness and unity by itself, without 
depending too much on the rest of the story; that the material 
selected shall have real dramatic quality — shall present interesting 
action, not mere talk; and that it shall not be too difficult for ama- 
teur actors without elaborate costumes or stage settings. 

To illustrate the last point it may be noted that any scenes in 
which fighting or other violent action occurs — tempting though they 
may be to the youthful mind — cannot be undertaken because they 
would almost invariably lead to 1 1 horse-play. ’ * Nor can scenes 
involving much movement from place to place be undertaken; only 
scenes of considerable talk and action within a very limited space 
are practicable. 

Scenes and incidents should be left unchanged if possible; but 
sometimes it is desirable to put in one scene related events and 
conversations that can just as well occur at one time and place, 
though they are not so represented in the story. For example, 
in Simons and Orr’s dramatization from Treasure Island, a con- 

309 


310 


APPENDIX 


ference between Doctor Livesey and Jim Hawkins, which in the 
story takes place outside the blockhouse, is put inside in order to 
prevent a change of setting. And in the dramatization from Henry 
Esmond, certain events which in the novel are spread over three 
days are put in a single scene. Teachers and students who have 
had their attention called to the way Shakspere treated his sources 
in writing his plays ( Macbeth , for example) will readily appre- 
ciate the frequent need of condensation and concentration. 

Very long speeches Should usually be avoided, but as they do not 
often occur in novels not much difficulty on this score is to be 
expected. Even moderately long speeches, however, may sometimes 
be interrupted effectively by remarks that some character might 
naturally make, though it is usually best to 1 1 stick to one ’s text. ’ ’ 

Sometimes a scene may be greatly helped if an expository or 
descriptive passage is put into the mquth of one of the characters. 
This should not be done, howeve^ unless such a shift aids clearness 
or serves some real need. 

Stage directions — descriptions of the scene or the persons, and 
statements of action accompanying the speeches — may often be 
taken directly from the book in hand, but sometimes must be sup- 
plied. The very full directions given by recent playwrights (in 
contrast with the meager directions in Shakspere ’s plays) may be 
examined to advantage. See, for example, plays by Ibsen, Bernard 
Shaw, Sir James M. Barrie, and others. Usually, however, little 
is to be gained by elaborate directions. 

In Simons and Orr’s Dramatization (Second Year, pages 78-86) 
may be found four short scenes from Kidnapped. The first, from 
Chapter III (bottom of page 56 of this edition), deals with 
1 1 David ’s first morning at the house of Shaws. ’ ’ The second scene 
is from Chapter VI, at the inn at the Queen’s Ferry (p. 80), and 
contains “the revelation” as to the fate of David’s father. The 
remaining scenes present the quarrel and reconciliation of David 
and Alan in Chapter XXIV ; the first using the conversation on 
pages 237-239, the second taking up the narrative a^ain on page 
242. With these scenes as specimens the ingenious teacher or 
student can no doubt make a number of additions. 


CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 

In the following parallel columns are given the most impor- 
tant dates in the history of English and American literature, 
from the time of Shakspere down to 1900. Special care has 
been taken to include the classics commonly read in high 
schools, so that the historical background of any given classic 
will be apparent from the table: 


AMERICAN 


ENGLISH 

(1594-5 Sliakspere : Midsummer 
\ Night’s Dream. 

*1596 (or earlier): Romeo and 
Juliet. 

( 598 (or earlier) : The Mer- 

chant of Venice. 

599 Henry V. 

1599-1600 As You Like It. 


1601-1700 


L607 

1608 


t 1610 


1620 


/1601 

V602 

C 603 
605 


Jamestown founded. 

J. Smith : A True Rela- 
tion. 

Strachey : A True Rep- 
ortory. 


fl610 

>1611 


/I612 

>16.14 


Plymouth Colony founded. 


/-1616 

V4620 


Julius Caesar. 

Hamlet ; Twelfth Night 
(acted). 

Queen Elizabeth died. 
Bacon: Advancement of 
Learning. 


Shakspere : Macbeth 

(acted). 

The Tempest (acted). 

“K i n g James” Bible 
printed. 

Bacon : Essays (first edi- 
tion, 1597). 

Raleigh : History of 
the World. 

Shakspere died. 

Baeoii : Novum Organum. 


311 


* 


i 

I 


312 


APPENDIX 


1624 

1630 


1635 

1636 
1638 

1640 

1644 

1650 

1662 


1681 

1682 

1689 

1692 


AMERICAN 


1623 


J. Smith : The General 
History of Virginia. 

Massachusetts Bay Col- 
ony founded. 

Bradford : History of 
Plimoth Plantation be- 
gun about this time. 

Winthrop : Journal be- 

gun, ended 1649. 


1627 


1633 


R. Mather : Journal 
(written) . 

Harvard College estab- 
lished. 

New Haven founded. 


1634 


1638 


The Bay Psalm Book. 


”1642 


Williams : 
Tenent. 


The Bloudy 


A. Bradstreet : Poems. 


1644 

1648 

1649 

1653 


1660 


Wigglesworth : The Day 
of Doom. 


1666 

1667 

1671 


C. Mather: Diary begun. 

Philadelphia founded. 

King William’s War. 
Salem witchcraft trials. 


1674 

1678 

1681 

1682 

1688 


1697 


. ENGLISH 

Shakspere : Plays (first 
folio edition). 


Drayton : Ballad of Agin- 
court. 


Milton : L’ Allegro and II 
Penseroso. 

Milton: Comus (acted). 


Trial of John Hampden. 
Milton : Lycidas (pub- 
lished). 

Theaters closed. 

Browne : Religio Medici. 
Milton : Areopagitica. 
Battle of Marston Moor. 
Herrick : Hesperides. 
Charles I executed. 

Walton : The Compleat 
Angler. 

The monarchy restored. 
Pepys : Diary begun, end- 
ed 1669. 


London fire. 

Milton : Paradise Lost. 

Milton : Paradise Re- 
gained ; Samson Agon- 
istes. 

Milton died. 

Bunyan: Pilgrim’s Prog- 
ress. 

Dryden : Absalom and 
Achitophel. 

Dryden : MacFlecknoe. 

The English Revolution. 


Dryden : Alexander’s 
Feast. 


APPENDIX 


313 


1701-1800 


AMERICAN 


1701 Yale College established. 
1702-1^ Queen Anne’s War. 

1702 C. Mather: Magnolia 

Christi Americana. 

1704 Boston News Letter estab- 
lished. 


1722 Edwards : Diary begun. 


1732 Washington born. 

1733 Franklin: Poor Richard’s 

Almanac (begun). 

1741 Edwards : Sinners in the 
Hands of an Angry 

God. 


1755 

Braddock’s defeat. 

1756 

Wool man : 
gun). 

Journal (be- 

1758 

Franklin : 

Tlie Way to 


Wealth 

in Poor Rich- 


ard’s Almanac. 


/ 


ENGLISH 

*1700 Dryden : Fables (“Pala- 
mon and Arcite,” etc.). 

1702 Queen Anne ascended 
throne. 

1704 Swift : Tale of a Tub. 

1709 • Steele and Addison : The 
Tatler begun. 

1711 Steele and Addison: The 

Spectator begun. 

1712 Pope : The Rape of the 

Lock . 

1714 Queen Anne died. 

1715 Pope : Translation of the 

Iliad (Books I-IV). 

1719 Defoe : Robinson Crusoe. 
1722 Defoe : Journal of the 
Plague Year. 

172G Swift : Gulliver’s Travels. 

Thomson : Winter. 

1728 Pope : Dunciad. 

1732 Pope : Essay on Man. 


1740 Richardson : Pamela. 


1742 Fielding: Joseph An- 

drews. 

1744 Death of Pope. 

1747 Gray : Ode on Eton Col- 

lege. 

1748 Richardson: Clarissa 

Harlowe. 

1749 Fielding: Tom Jones. 

1750 Johnson: The Rambler 

(begun). 

1751 Gray : Elegy Written in 

a Country Churchyard. 

1755 Johnson : English Dic- 
tionary. 


314 

1765 

' ‘ 

1771 

1773 

1775 

1776 

1783 

1785 

1786 

1789 

1796 

1798 

1803 


APPENDIX 


AMERICAN 


1759 

1760 
1762 
1764 


Godfrey : Juvenile Poems 1765 
(with The Prince of 
Parthia, the first Amer- 
ican drama). 

The Stamp Act. 1766 


1770 


Franklin : Autobiography, 
first part, written. 

P. Wheatley : Poems. 




* 

Trumbull : M’Fingal. 
Henry : Speech in the 
Virginia Convention. 
The Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. 

Paine : Common Sense. 


1771 

1773 

1775 

1776 
1779 


The Treaty of Paris. 
Dwight : The Conquest 

of Canaan. 

Freneau : Poems. ' 
Franklin : Autobiography, 
second part, written. 


Washington : Farewell 

Address. 

Brown: Wieland. 

J. Hopkinson : H a i l 
Columbia. • 


1783 

1785 

1786 
1789 

1791 

1798 


ENGLISH 

Sterne : Tristram Shandy 
(begun). 

Johnson : Rasselas. 

King George III on 
throne. 

Macpherson : The Poems 
of Ossian. 

Walpole : The Castle of 
Otranto. 

Goldsmith : The Traveler. 

Percy : Reliques of An- 
cient Poetry. 


Goldsmith : Vicar of 

Wakefield. 

Goldsmith : Deserted Vil- 
lage. 

Encyclopedia Britannica, 
first edition. 

Goldsmith : She Stoops 
to Conquer (acted). 

Burke : Speech on Con- 
ciliation. 

Sheridan : The Rivals. 

Gibbon : Decline and Fall 
of Roman Empire. 

Johnson: Lives of the 

Poets. 

Crabbe : The Village. 

Cowper : The Task. 

Burns : Poems. 

Blake : Songs of Inno- 
cence. 

Boswell : Life of Dr. 

Johnson. 


Wordsworth and Cole- 
ridge : Lyrical Ballads 
(“The Ancient Mari- 
ner,” etc.). 


1801-1900 


The Louisiana Purchase. 


1805 

N 

1808 


Scott : Lay of the Last 
Minstrel. 

Scott : Marmion. 


APPENDIX 


315 


AMERICAN 

1809 Irving : Knickerbocker's 
History of New York. 


1812-14 War with England. 


1814 Key : The Star-Spangled 

Banner. 

1815 Freneau : Poems. 


1817 Iiryant : Thanatopsis. 

v 

1819 Drake : The American 

Flag. 

1820 Irving: The Sketch Book. 
The Missouri Compromise. 

1821 Cooper : The Spy. 

Bryant : Poems. 

1822 Irving: Bracebridge Hall. 

1823 Payne : Home, Sweet 

Home. 

Cooper : The Pilot. 

1824 Irving : Tales of a Trav- 

eler. 

1825 Webster : The Bunker 

Hill Monument. 

1826 Cooper: The Last of the 

Mohicans. 

1827 Poe: Tamerlane and 

Other Poems. 


1831 Poe : Poems. 

1832 Irving: The Alhambra. 
S. F. Smith : America. 

1833 Poe : MS. Found in a 

Bottle. 


ENGLISH 

1809 Byron : English Bards 

and Scotch Reviewers. 

1810 Scott : The Lady of the 

Lake. 

1811 J. Austen : Sense and 

Sensibility. 

1812 Byron : Childe Harold, 

I, II. 

1813 Southey : Life of Nelson. 
1814' Scott: Waverley. 

Wordsworth : The Excur- 
sion. 

1815 The Battle of Waterloo. 

1816 Byron : The Prisoner of 

Chillon; Childe Harold, 
III. 

Coleridge : Christabel. 

1817 Keats: Poems (first col- 

lection). 


1818 

Byron : 

Childe Harold, 


IV. 


1819 

Scott : 

Ivanhoe. 

1820 

Keats : 

Poems. 


Shelley 

: Prometheus Un- 


bound. 

1821 Shelley : Adonais. 

De Quincey : Confessions 
of an Opium Eater. 

1823 Scott : Quentin Durward. 
Lamb : Essays of Elia. 

1824 Landor : Imaginary Con- 

versations. 

1825 Macaulay : Essay on Mil- 

ton. 

1827 A. and C. Tennyson : 

Poems by Two Broth- 
ers. 

1828 Carlyle : Essay on Burns. 
1830 Tennyson : Poems Chiefly 

Lyrical. 


1832 Death of Scott ; The Re- 

form Bill. 

1833 Carlyle: Sartor Resartus. 
Tennyson : Poems. 
Browning : Pauline. 


316 APPENDIX ' 


AMERICAN 

1835 Drake: The Culprit Fay, 

etc. 

1836 Holmes : Poems. 
Emerson : Nature. 

1837 Emerson : The American 

Scholar. 

Hawthorne : Twice-Told 

Tales, first series. 
Whittier : Poems. 

1839 Poe : Tales of the Grotes- 
que and Arabesque. 

Longfellow : Voices of the 
Night. 

1840. Dana : Tivo Years Before 
the Mast. 

1841 Emerson : Essays, first 

series. 

Longfellow : Ballads and 
Other Poems. 

1842 Hawthorne : Twice-Told 

Tales, second series. 

1843 Poe : The Oold-Bug. 

Prescott: Con 2 uest of 

Mexico. 


1844 Emerson : Essays, second 

series. 

Lowell : Poems. 

1845 Poe : The Raven and 

Other Poems. 

1846 Hawthorne: Mosses from 

an Old Manse. 

1846-48 War with Mexico. 

1847 Emerson : Poems. 

Longfellow : Evangeline. 
Parkman : The Oregon 

Trail. 

1848 Lowell : Vision of Sir 

Launfal. 

1849 Irving : Oliver Goldsmith. 


1850 Emerson : Representative 
Men. 

Hawthorne : The Scarlet 
Letter. 


ENGLISH 

1535 Browning: Paracelsu''. 

1536 Dickens : Pickwick Pa- 

pers. 

1837 Victoria became Queen. 

' De Quincey : Revolt of 
the Tartars. 

Carlyle: The French 
Revolution. 


1840 Macaulay : Essay on 

Clive. 

1841 Browning : Pippa Passes. 
Macaulay : Essay on War- 
ren Hastings. 

1842 Macaulay : Lays of An- 

cient Rome. 

Browning : Dramatic 
Lyrics. 

1843 Dickens : A Christmas 

Carol. 

Macaulay : Essay on Ad- 
dison. 

Ruskin : Modern Painters, 
Vol. I. 

1844 E. B. Browning : Poems. 


1845 Browning: Dramatic Ro- 

mances and Lyrics. 

1846 Dickens : The Cricket on 

the Hearth. 

I 

1847 De Quincey : Joan of Arc. 
Tennyson : The Princess. 
Thackeray : Vanity Fair. 
C. Bronte : Jane Eyre. 

1848 Macaulay : History of 

England, I, II. 

1S49 De Quincey : The English 
Mail Coach. 

M. Arnold : The Strayed 
Reveller, etc. 

1850 Tennyson: InMemoriam. 
Dickens : David Copper- 
field. 

i 


APPENDIX 


317 


AMERICAN 

1851 Hawthorne : The House 

of the Seven Gables. 
Parkman : The Conspir- 
acy of Pontiac. 

1852 Mrs. Stowe : Uncle Tom’s 

Cabin. 


1854 Thoreau : Walden. 

1855 Longfellow : Hiawatha. 
Whitman : Leaves of 

Grass. 

1856 Motley : Rise of the Dutch 

Republic. 

Curtis : Prue and I. 


1858 Longfellow : Courtship of 
Miles Standish. 

Holmes : Autocrat of the 
Breakfast Table. 


1861-65 The Civil War. 


1862-66 Lowell : Biglow Pa- 
pers, II. 

1863 Longfellow : Tales of a 
Wayside Inn. 


1865 Whitman : Drum Taps. 

1866 Whittier: Snow-Bound. 


ENGLISH 

1851 Thackeray : Lectures on 

English Humorists. 

G. Meredith : Poems. 

1852 Thackeray : Henry Es- 

mond. 

1853 M. Arnold: Poems 

(“Sohrab and Rusturn,” 
etc.) . 

Mrs. Gaskell: Cranford. 

1855 R. Browning : Men and 

Women. 

Tennyson : Maud. 

1856 Macaulay : E s s ay s on 

Johnson and Goldsmith. 
Mrs. Browning : Aurora 
Leigh. 

1857 Hughes : Tom Brown’s 

School Days. 


1859 Tennyson : Idylls of the 

King. 

Dickens : A Tale of Two 
Cities. 

G. Eliot : Adam Bede. 
Meredith : Ordeal of 
Richard Feverel. 

Darwin : The Origin of 
Species. 

1860 G. Eliot: The Mill on 

the Floss. 

1861 G. Eliot : Silas Marner. 
Reade : The Cloister and 

the Hearth. 

Palgrave : The Golden 

Treasury. 

1862 Meredith : Modern Love, 

etc. 

1863 G. Eliot : Romola. 

1864 Browning : Dramatis Per- 

sonal. 

Swinburne : Atalanta in 
Calydon. 

1865 Ruskin: Sesame and 

Lilies. / 

1866 Ruskin : A Crown of Wild 

Olive. 


318 

1868 

1870 

1871 

1873 

1876 

1877 

1879 

1881 


1886 

1887 

1888 

1890 

1891 

1898 


3 

APPENDIX 


AMERICAN 

Hale : The Man Without 
a Country, etc. 


1868 


ENGLISH HS 

Browning : The Ring an< 
the Book. 


1868-70 Morris : The Earthl 
Paradise. 


Bret Harte : The Luck 
of Roaring Camp, etc. 
Howells : Their Wedding 
Journey. 


Aldrich : Marjorie Daw, 
etc. 

Mark Twain : Tom Saw- 
yer. 

Lanier : Poems. 


Cable : Old Creole Days. 
Stockton : Rudder Orange. 


Whittier : The King’s 

Missive. 


1869 Tennyson. The H oil 

Grail, etc. 

1870 D. G. Rossetti : Poems. 

1871 Swinburne: Songs Before 

Sunrise. 

1872 Tennyson : Gareth and 

Lynette, etc. 

1873 Arnold : Literature and 

Dogma. 

1876 Morris : Sigurd the Vol 
sung. 

1878 Stevenson : An Inland 

Voyage. 

1879 Stevenson : Travels with 

a Donkey. 

Meredith : The Egoist. 
1881 D. G. Rossetti : Ballads 
and Sonnets. 


II. Jackson : Sonnets and 
Lyrics. 

M. E. Wilkins : A Humble 
Romance, etc. 

Whitman: November 
Boughs. 


E. Dickinson : Poems, 
first series. 

Whitman : Goodbye, My 
Fancy. 


War with Spain. 


1882 

Stevenson 

Nights. 

: New Arabian 

1883 

Stevenson 

land. 

: Treasure Is- 

1886 

Stevenson 

: Kidnapped. 

1887 

Stevenson 

: The Merry 


Men (“ 
etc'). 

M a r k h e i m,” 

1888 

Kipling: Plain Tales 


from the Hills. 


Barrie: 

Idylls. 

Auld Liclit 

1889 

Browning 

: Asolando. 

\ 

1891 

Kipling : 
cap. 

Life’s Handi- 

1892 

Tennyson 

died. 

1893 

Conington 

: Translation 


of Aeneid published. 


Barrie : Two of Them. 
1901 Queen Victoria died. 


/ , 


■ ~ Hh 


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